SF Standard – State Lawmaker Wants To Start Ticketing San Francisco Robotaxis
See full article on SF Standard by Joshua Bote.
After a disastrous year for Cruise, one California lawmaker wants more scrutiny on the robotaxi industry coming into 2024—and is preparing legislation that would treat robotaxis the same as human-operated vehicles when they speed or commit other moving violations.
Assemblymember Phil Ting, who represents parts of San Francisco and San Mateo County, told The Standard that he’s in the process of rolling out legislation that would further regulate driverless vehicles.
A change to existing laws has been on Ting’s mind for the past few months when it became clear that robotaxi expansion in San Francisco was leading to issues with local officials. But he’s been intimately familiar with the vehicles for years as a resident of the Sunset neighborhood where these companies piloted their products. He’s also ridden in a Cruise and deemed the experience “safe/cautious” in an X post around the time Cruise had its permit pulled by the California Department of Motor Vehicles.
“That’s my one piece of anecdotal data. … I didn’t do a Consumer Reports test,” he joked when asked about the post.
“Obviously, as they’ve started to become issues in our city, I got approached from a number of city officials asking, ‘Hey, can my office be a little bit more active simply because they were having challenges communicating with [the utilities commission], challenges communicating with DMV,” Ting told The Standard in an interview.
continued…
See full article on SF Standard.
