After the release of the Department of Motor Vehicle’s draft autonomous vehicle deployment regulations in December, the agency held two public workshops over the past week to allow the public to weigh in. The workshops, attended by DMV Chief Counsel Brian Soublet and the co-sponsors of the agency’s autonomous vehicles project, offered the first opportunity for public comment on the regulations. The workshops were structured to mirror the regulations, allowing for conversations about the requirement that a licensed driver be present in all driverless vehicles, the vehicle safety certification process, vehicle deployment, and privacy and security requirements.
While the workshops were intended to focus on legal issues, the conversation quickly expanded to the potential benefits, and risks, posed by the technology. Most comments came from the disabled community, with advocates for the blind, paralyzed and others protesting the requirement that a licensed driver be present in the vehicle — a provision they asserted would prevent disabled individuals from utilizing this technology, and would blunt the positive effects on the disabled community that driverless cars could create. Manufacturers, including Google, Audi and Volkswagen, expressed displeasure with the regulations requirement that a steering wheel be present in all cars. They also disagreed with the proposed requirement that manufacturers demonstrate the technology for regulators, arguing that every safety innovation ever deployed in vehicles has been manufacturer-invented and tested without regulatory oversight. Participants further stressed that the DMV’s regulations do not take into account that driverless cars will likely be safer than human-operated vehicles, with the software less likely to get distracted, more likely to react to stimuli quickly, and more capable of making decisions about the safety of operational conditions and maneuvers.
The DMV ended the proceedings by encouraging all interested parties to submit comments to the agency by Feb. 16. Interested parties, including local and regional government agencies, should consider participating to ensure their concerns are heard, and that local governments have an influence on the final regulations. While there will be a 45-day comment period later in the year, the DMV urges interested parties to comment both during this period and again in the public comment period once changes have been made based on the discussions at the workshops.
Driverless cars have the potential to effect everything from transportation planning and infrastructure to land use, congestion planning and even mass transit options. The way local government agencies think about transportation and related resources over the next few years needs to take into account the potential for autonomous vehicles to radically reshape our roads.
Please send questions or comments to LADRegulations@dmv.ca.gov.
