Law enforcement agencies in California will soon be able to issue formal notices to self-driving cars for alleged traffic violations under a new law that goes into effect in 2026.
AB 1777, authored by former state Assemblymember Philip Ting, D-San Francisco, establishes greater regulations on autonomous vehicles when encountering law enforcement or emergency response personnel.
Law enforcement will be allowed to issue “notices of autonomous vehicle noncompliance” to the manufacturers of driverless cars. The manufacturers would then be required to notify the Department of Motor Vehicles of the alleged violation.
An additional component of the law requires all self-driving cars to be equipped with two-way communication technology that allows law enforcement and emergency responders to contact a human operator who can direct vehicles remotely.
Emergency personnel will be able to issue an emergency geofencing message to the manufacturer of a self-driving car and would require the manufacturer to direct its cars to leave or avoid a certain area within two minutes of receiving the message.
The bill seeks to create a protocol for holding accountable autonomous vehicles that have no human driver to fault when committing traffic violations or obstructing emergency responses, issues that law enforcement have encountered in recent years as more self-driving cars fill Bay Area streets.
In September, the San Bruno Police Department couldn’t issue a citation to a Waymo driverless car that had allegedly made an illegal U-turn. The department had to instead contact the company.
Autonomous vehicles have also obstructed emergency responses, including getting in the way of emergency response vehicles, according to the San Francisco County Transportation Authority.
“This legislation would treat driverless cars as if there was a real person behind the wheel,” Ting said in a statement during a reading of the bill.
The “notices of autonomous vehicle noncompliance” would be used by the DMV to assess permitting and help track vehicle safety of driverless cars.
The bill does not define specific means of punishment for notices of noncompliance. The DMV must establish a system of addressing notices of noncompliance.
Autonomous vehicle companies have until the summer to be in compliance with the new communication standards.
… imo …this should have built in at the very beginning of acceptance to be on public streets – why did it take so long?
Maybe they should issue citations to the people who wrote and validated the software.
There is a reason why this bill contains no punishment. With millions of lines of code, maybe billions of lines, how could you possibly prove beyond a reasonable doubt which individual programmer was responsible for the offending line of code?
Here is an even more interesting conundrum. What happens if AI is responsible writing the offending line of code?!?
I suspect the DMV will treat this strictly administratively and forgo any criminal or civil action. Comply or have your ability to operate autonomous vehicle in public revoked but time will tell.
To have a drivers license, you must have Liability insurance which covers you in any car you drive.
If liability insurance follows the Driver of a car….then….
Somebody help me out here!
I think you meant the registered owner of the vehicle needs liability insurance since in these cases there was no human driver.
Whereas the R/O (registered owner) is responsible for maintaining their vehicle to road worthiness standards (fix it tickets). The R/O is not and never has been criminally responsible for a moving violation committed by someone while operating the R/O’s vehicle.
The government is responsible for proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt standard and determining the driver’s identity is paramount. This is the reason why Red Light camera citations fail so often. The Government issue a citation to the R/O ASSUMING they were the driver. In reality, at the time an automated computer issues a citation, the Government has no idea the identity of the driver operating the motor vehicle. IMHO the Government is simply working the percentages that most people will simply pay the fine and not fight it but YMMV (no pun intended)
Does that make sense?
True! I’m a programmer and there is no such thing as a “perfect program”. Where I worked we could have a crew of QA pounding on the software for weeks to uncover bugs but often on the way to having the software duplicated for publishing we’d get a call to turn around as yet another bug was found. And there was also bugs user’s found after release.
.
Then there is the loony AI war going between companies trying to be the top dog in AI while wasting resources. We don’t need AI nor turn humans into “hive mind” cyborgs.
HAL 9000 –2001 : A Space Odyssey
Harlan Ellison’s short story “I have no mouth, and I must Scream” .
Skynet – Cyberdyne Systems – “We are the Future”
Weyland-Yutani Corporation: “Building Better Worlds/“Building a Better Future ”
The Matrix
Colossus – The Forbin Project – “This is the voice of world Control. I bring you peace. It may be the peace of plenty and content or peace of unburied death. The choice is yours: Obey me and live, or disobey and die”
and last but not least
The Borg – “Resistance is futile”
It’ll never stand up in court they’re going to say they weren’t driving the car.
I remember when Arizona first installed traffic enforcement cameras with mail in citations. There was a guy that every morning rolled the same right turn against a red light while wearing a bunny mask. There was also a regular speeder who wore a monkey mask. In both cases the tickets mounted substantially. They both claimed, “That’s not me driving the car, look, here’s my driver’s license”. The program was later dropped.
Then change the law a bit and treat it like a parking ticket.