California proposes to allow testing of driverless heavy-duty trucks

[groundloop]

Source: The Guardian

California regulators have released a new proposal to allow the testing of self-driving heavy-duty trucks on public roads.

The state’s department of motor vehicles announced proposed regulations on Friday to allow the testing of driverless trucks over 10,001lbs, opening the door for companies to test self-driving technology on vehicles roughly the size of a Ram or Ford super duty pickup truck.

Regulators say self-driving heavy-duty trucks are already being tested in other states including Texas, Arizona and Arkansas. California is the only state with regulations that explicitly ban them.

The proposed regulations, which were posted online, are subject to a public comment period that ends in June.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/25/california-self-driving-truck-testing-proposal

[RandySF]

1. What could possibly go wrong?

[Hekate]

2. That is more than a little insane, when railroad tracks are available & can haul many shipping containers...

…at once with only one “driver”

There are many advantages to a well-run RR, not the least of which is saving wear and tear on the road system brought about by ever bigger and heavier trucks and their ever heavier loads.

[marybourg]

4. It's a big state and railroads don't run everywhere.

At some point stuff has to be offloaded from the railroad and sent on a truck to the delivery point

[Retrograde]

7. They're still used extensively

containers from China are off-loaded at the ports of Los Angeles and Oakland, put on trains, than shipped across the country. I remember camping in the Mojave desert and hearing trains all night.

[Auggie]

3. It's only a proposal. I'd be surprised if it was ever approved.

[Multichromatic]

5. Wow! makes sense...

I totally want to be a guinea pig for corporate America to test their crappy self driving 10,000 lbs. trucks with shoddy software.

I can't wait for all the preventable deaths and 100 car pile ups on the public roads.

Who's ignorant stupid idea is this. Gross!!!!

[moonbeam23]

6. Please, God, NOOOO

Driving in CA is dangerous enough already without driverless vehicles everywhere...and that includes Muskrats taxis.

[Retrograde]

8. Dodging trucks on I5 going up to Oregon

is already so much fun - maybe the driverless ones can be programmed to stay under the speed limit (which is 10 mph lower for trucks). The downgrade after Siskiyou pass at the border is scary enough today - even with drivers who check their truck's breaks before they try it!

[Mawspam2]

9. As someone who drove trucks for 15 years...

...I can tell you this, anyone who approves this is unleashing 80,000 pound bombs on their population that WILL KILL hundreds, perhaps thousands of people.

We have seen the destruction of lives by Waymo taxis and moron Tesla owners that let their cars do the driving. Now go from a 3,000 pound car to a 80,000 pound truck to see the kind of death and destruction you'll achieve.

The last truck I drove had all kinds of automation. Lane departure warning system, collision avoidence (automatic braking) system. Truck Fleeting, where one truck automatically follows another, in the same lane, at a "safe" distance.

On numerous occasions, my truck slammed on the brakes as it approached an overpass, thinking it was about to hit a stopped vehicle.

That truck would react badly when in construction zones, as it was unable to deal with traffic barrels or temporary barriers. Without my intervention, that truck would have been in numerous crashes.

The fleeting feature works, until it dosen't. It can't figure out what to do when cars suddenly swerve into the lane just in front of it.

The self-driving technology is nowhere near ready. The first person I would sue in a wrongful death suit is any government moron who approves this. I'm sure discovery will quickly find a trail of money to trucking companies who just don't give a shit.

[Buddyzbuddy]

10. Oh, what the heck, let's give it a shot. What do we have to lose.

Whatever politicians and state officials sign off on this idiocy must be made personally responsible both civilly and criminally. Any companies using this equipment need to have 10x the liability insurance and CEOs must be held criminally and civilly responsible.
If the public is going to have skin in the game then so should those responsible for proposing and implementing this most asinine idea. All for the sake of greed. No driver, no log books, trucks running 24/7. No down time. Just greed and lots of palm greasing. Whatever politicians backing this can be assumed to be on the take.
Whomever is running for Gov. needs to swear they will NEVER allow this. It's bad enough the Federal Gov't now allows 18year old kids behind the wheel.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Again, just because you can doesn't mean you should.

[NBachers]

11. I've tried WayMo's. I have a car with all the driver-assist features. I don't want driverless big trucks out on the road

I've enjoyed my local WayMo rides. I tell people that when I use the driverless features on my car, I'm an unpaid beta-tester.

When I'm on the highway with driver-assist, my car tries to turn down the exit ramp because it wants to follow the line on the right side of the ramp. I have to steer back onto the road and resist the car's impulse to go right.

The car also has a rare tendency to steer over the left lane marker and then sound the lane-assist alarm. It's up to me to prevent this.

The driver-assist features usually make freeway driving stable and more economical. But the driver always has to be ready for any malfunction. I'd never trust these features without me in control.

We're not there yet.

[xocetaceans]

12. It sounds like a terrible idea. Why not build a large, closed road&track district and test trucks there until...

...the technology is perfected?...Why risk people's lives with a technology that is not nearly ready?

Gov. Newsom vetoes bill to have human drivers ride in autonomous trucks
September 23, 2023 / 12:28 PM PDT / AP


SACRAMENTO -- California Gov. Gavin Newsom has vetoed a bill to require human drivers on board self-driving trucks, a measure that union leaders and truck drivers said would save hundreds of thousands of jobs in the state.

The legislation vetoed Friday night would have banned self-driving trucks weighing more than 10,000 pounds (4,536 kilograms) — ranging from UPS delivery vans to massive big rigs — from operating on public roads unless a human driver is on board.

Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, head of the California Labor Federation, said driverless trucks are dangerous and called Newsom's veto shocking. She estimates that removing drivers would cost a quarter million jobs in the state.

"We will not sit by as bureaucrats side with tech companies, trading our safety and jobs for increased corporate profits. We will continue to fight to make sure that robots do not replace human drivers and that technology is not used to destroy good jobs," Fletcher said in a statement late Friday.

...

https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/governor-newsom-vetoes-bill-human-drivers-ride-autonomous-trucks/