At long last, California has established rules for autonomous trucks, thereby eliminating the ban on autonomous heavy-duty vehicles.
There will be a tiered permitting process requiring autonomous trucks to log 500,000 miles with a driver and additional 500,000 miles without a driver before full deployment approval will be granted.
There will also be significant government oversight of safety data. Additionally, autonomous heavy-duty trucks will be prohibited on local roads with speed limits of 25mph or less, with carveouts for “the most linear and geographically logical path” between two commercial facilities.
On the subject of autonomous vehicles, here is a question for you…who is at fault when an autonomous or semi-autonomous truck (or car) is involved in an accident?
We do not have an answer but suspect it will lead to further complexities and open the door to including hardware and software providers in litigation.