Skip to main content

California self-driving car rules ‘perplexing’

California’s Department of Motor vehicles (DMV) has issued its draft self-driving vehicle deployment regulations, which, according to Google’s self-driving car chief, Chris Urmson, are perplexing. The DMV has proposed a draft rule that would require a self-driving car to have a licensed driver at all times. Urmson says that while this maintains the same old status quo, it falls short on allowing this technology to reach its full potential, while excluding those who need to get around but cannot drive.
December 21, 2015 Read time: 2 mins

California’s Department of Motor vehicles (DMV) has issued its draft self-driving vehicle deployment regulations, which, according to Google’s self-driving car chief, Chris Urmson, are perplexing.

The DMV has proposed a draft rule that would require a self-driving car to have a licensed driver at all times. Urmson says that while this maintains the same old status quo, it falls short on allowing this technology to reach its full potential, while excluding those who need to get around but cannot drive.

He says, “While we’re disappointed by this, we will continue to work with the DMV as they seek feedback in the coming months, in the hope that we can recapture the original spirit of the bill.

“California is a state with both world-class car culture and world-class innovation, and we can do better. Instead of putting a ceiling on the potential of self-driving cars, let’s have the courage to imagine what California would be like if we could live without the shackles of stressful commutes, wasted hours, and restricted mobility for those who want the independence that the automobile has always represented.”

The DMV has scheduled two public workshops, the first on 28 January in Sacramento and the second in Los Angeles on 2 February to allow interested parties to provide input on the draft regulations.

Related Content

  • May 22, 2012
    Vehicle ownership - a thing of the past?
    Convergence of electron-powered vehicles with connected vehicle technologies could mean that only a few decades from now the idea of owning a vehicle will be entirely alien to the road user. By Technolution chief scientist Dave Marples with Jason Barnes Even when taken individually, many of the developments going on and around vehiclebased mobility will bring about major changes in transportation. Taken collectively, the transformations we might expect are nothing short of profound. Enumeration of the influ
  • January 31, 2012
    Managing congestion, better information changes perceptions
    Kapsch's Dietrich Leihs talks about the true fundamentals of urban pricing. In some Italian and German towns and cities, the solution to congestion is an outright ban on certain types of vehicles. As far as Dietrich Leihs is concerned, any attempt to sweeten the pill that is congestion charging is only ever going to be a partial success at best.
  • January 2, 2025
    Hayden AI deploys bus enforcement cameras in Sacramento
    California city's authorities will start issuing fines from February
  • July 16, 2012
    A fresh approach to electronic fee collection
    The Utah Transit Authority (UTA) is pioneering fresh approaches to Electronic Fee Collection (EFC) deployment in the US. Its new system, operational since January 2009 on all buses and commuter trains, is the country's first full-network rollout of transit e-ticketing technology built on an open-payment network, according to the organisation's Technology Programme Development Manager Craig Roberts.