Self-driving cars aren't here yet, but states are getting the rules ready

Early one morning last year, as state Rep. Josh Bray left his small town of Mount Vernon in southeastern Kentucky to make his way to the Capitol in Frankfort, he decided to count how many drivers he saw texting or distracted by something else.

He quit counting after 24 when he saw a truck driver reading a newspaper while going down the road.

The incident spurred the Republican lawmaker’s effort to pass a bill this spring in the Kentucky legislature that sets rules for self-driving vehicles, including the largest commercial trucks after July 2026. Bray thinks the rules will ensure that self-driving vehicles are safer than those operated by often-distracted human drivers.

The new law for fully autonomous vehicles — those designed to function without a human driver present — requires owners to file a safety and communication plan that law enforcement can use and to have a minimum of $1 million in liability insurance per vehicle, roughly 10 times higher than the amount for regular personal vehicles.

“I felt like it was necessary to have something on the books in Kentucky because we are kind of a logistics hub,” Bray said. For example, he said, self-driving baggage handling vehicles at a northern Kentucky airport now will be able to cross a state road.

The legislature approved the bill in late March and a few weeks later overrode a veto by Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, who said the bill advanced too quickly and that there should be a testing period before fully autonomous vehicles are allowed to drive in the state.

While no fully autonomous cars are in regular use in the country yet, some states have allowed limited testing and pilot programs on public roads. Many state legislatures are trying to get ahead of self-driving vehicles that eventually will be on their roads by setting standards for operating the vehicles and rules for law enforcement if they see an autonomous vehicle breaking a traffic law. And many laws require, as Kentucky’s does, a minimum insurance requirement to protect drivers, passengers and pedestrians, should the vehicles be involved in an accident.

This year, five states and Washington, D.C., enacted bills dealing with fully automated vehicles, according to Douglas Shinkle, associate director of environment, energy and transportation for the National Conference of State Legislatures. The new laws in Alabama, Kentucky and South Dakota allow for the operation of fully autonomous vehicles, while California’s new law deals with safety requirements. North Carolina’s brings the vehicles under updated dealer regulations for all cars.

Updates to current laws

About half the states already have statutes regulating vehicles operated by some degree of autonomous technology — ranging from the fully autonomous vehicles that are not on the road yet to those that have some driver-assist functions, Shinkle said. But many of the laws are being changed already.

“There’s been a steady progression of bills,” he said, “with some going back and refining some of the language. Every year some new states are getting into the mix.”

Most of this year’s new laws have to do with commercial vehicles, he said. States hope to bring in manufacturers of the vehicles or other industries that would use the technology.

“A lot of this is motivated by states that don’t want to be left behind,” Shinkle said. ”They hope this may lead to jobs in their states.”

But labor unions worry that driving jobs might be lost to the technology.

Dustin Reinstedler, president of the Kentucky chapter of the AFL-CIO, testified against the bill in his state, saying at a legislative hearing that his union preferred alternative legislation calling for a study of the “effects of autonomous vehicles on our roads and the jobs of over 50,000 workers.”

Already, autonomous ride-hailing vehicles from Waymo, formerly known as the Google self-driving car project, dot the landscape in Los Angeles, Phoenix and San Francisco, allowed to drive within limited areas.

Safety concerns

Fully autonomous vehicles have raised safety concerns. California enacted a law this year that will, among other things, require manufacturers to continuously monitor every autonomous vehicle on the road and designate a remote human operator to immobilize a vehicle if necessary. The law also allows law enforcement to issue a notice of noncompliance when autonomous vehicles violate local traffic ordinances.

Earlier this month, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration began an investigation into four crashes of Teslas operating with a partial-automation system (which can navigate highways and steer the car on city streets but requires a licensed driver to be present), including one in which a pedestrian was killed. In a news release, NHTSA said reduced visibility may have led to the crashes.

A NHTSA spokesperson said in an email that in each incident, the Tesla entered an area with reduced roadway visibility due to sun, glare, fog or dust. She would not elaborate nor be further identified.

Bray, the Kentucky lawmaker, argued that the self-driving vehicles and driver-assist vehicles are “much safer than human drivers.” He added that fully autonomous vehicles, such as large trucks, could run in the middle of the night, taking traffic off the roads during peak hours and lowering the risk of tired drivers falling asleep.

The idea of semitrucks without drivers makes Kentucky Republican state Sen. Greg Elkins uneasy. He opposed the bill and supported the governor’s veto.

“My reasoning was I just don’t think technology is there yet, particularly with 18-wheel vehicles,” he said in an interview. “I would have been OK with the bill that would have restricted [it to smaller vehicles].”

Alabama’s new law requires a minimum of $100,000 in liability insurance for fully autonomous vehicles, about the same as ordinary cars.

California’s new law requires $5 million in insurance for manufacturers testing autonomous vehicles on state roads, should any one of them be in an accident.

Robert Passmore, a vice president at the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, a trade group for insurance companies, said that should individual autonomous vehicles come into regular usage, the insurance companies still have to answer the question of “who was driving at the time.” He argued that the liability coverage should mirror that required for regular cars with drivers.

“Our position is that these vehicles should be insured the same,” he said. “The things that can happen as the result of driving are pretty much the same. Whatever the minimum limits are for that type of vehicle, those are probably appropriate [for autonomous vehicles]. Most people carry more than the minimum anyway.”