In somewhat surprising news, California Governor Gavin Newsome, a strong supporter of labor, late last week vetoed a bill that would have required a human being in the cab of many freight trucks, after it sailed through the state legislature.
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Along with his veto, Newsom said he is directing the Labor and Workforce Development Agency to lead a stakeholder process next year to review and develop recommendations to mitigate the potential employment impact of AV trucks.
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The proposed law would have required that human assist for any self-driving trucks greater than 10,000 pounds, which would have covered FedEx-type delivery vans as well as traditional semi trucks and others.
That means the bill would have effectively banned driverless autonomous medium-duty trucks and above from operating in the way they were designed.
Newsom said e didn’t need to sign the bill because such as requirement could be promulgated under existing state law. That authority is in fact given to the state Department of Motor Vehicles, which under a 2012 state law is charged to work with the California Highway Patrol, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration “and others with relevant expertise to determine the regulations necessary for the safe operation of autonomous vehicles on public roads.”
That of course could include a mandate for a human on-board.
Currently, California has some of the strictest autonomous vehicle regulations in the nation. However, the California DMV has been considering lifting its current ban on testing autonomous vehicles that weigh over 10,001 pounds in the state. The agency held a public workshop earlier this year on the matter.
All that prompted California lawmakers to come out with bill the governor just vetoed.
There are reports that the California Office of Business and Economic Development told Newsom the proposed law would push companies making self-driving technologies to move out of the Golden State.
According to Transport Topics, the magazine of the American Trucking Associations, Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, head of the California Labor Federation, said driverless trucks are dangerous and called Newsom’s veto “shocking.”
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 Fletcher estimates that removing drivers would cost a quarter million driver jobs in the state.
In a statement after the veto, Fletcher said that “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.”
Opponents of the legislation argue that self-driving cars are currently operating now on some California roads and have caused very few accidents, much less than are caused by human drivers.
Along with his veto, Newsom said he is directing the Labor and Workforce Development Agency to lead a stakeholder process next year to review and develop recommendations to mitigate the potential employment impact of AV trucks.
SCDigest will just say this debate about the safety of autonomous trucks and the impact of robotics on jobs is just getting started.
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