California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed important state legislation requiring a human operator to be present at all times inside a self-driving truck.
The bill would require autonomous heavy-duty robo-trucks weighing over 10,001 pounds to have human drivers, de facto preventing driverless trucks from running on California public roads. The victory for the autonomous trucking industry comes after Assembly Bill 316 passed in mid-September with a majority in California’s legislature. The bill was ‘unnecessary for the regulation and oversight of heavy-duty autonomous vehicle (AV) technology in California.