Robots Under Arrest – Traffic Violations in the Autonomous Era

As the number of autonomous vehicles (AVs) rise in the United States, questions are raised on how and who to keep accountable. A recent article in the Los Angeles Times covered that July 1st, 2026 will mark the day where police will be able to ticket AV vehicle manufacturers for road infractions in California.

The change is part of new regulations surrounding Assembly Bill 1777. The bill, announced by the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), will be able to “authorize peace officers, as defined, to issue of notices of autonomous vehicle noncompliance upon observing an alleged violation of the Vehicle Code or upon observing an alleged violation of a local traffic ordinance adopted pursuant to the Vehicle Code by an autonomous vehicle while the autonomous technology is engaged.”

Essentially, human passengers of driverless vehicles will not be responsible for infractions committed by the AVs, and the law would allow violations to be issued to their vehicle manufacturer. There is justification for this, as human decisions remain the thing being policed, even if the responsible party is one or more links backward in the chain of causation. Under the new law, if there is a collision caused by a driverless car, an officer can issue a violation that will notify the manufacturer’s designated person to arrive at the scene. If a traffic stop is not conducted, an officer can provide a copy of the violation to the DMV and the manufacturer within 72 hours of an incident.

Waymo, a subsidiary technology company of Alphabet Inc, has been working on nationwide robotaxi service for years. A competitor to taxis and other app-based driver service providers such as Uber and Lyft, the company opened the driverless service to the public in San Francisco before quickly expanding to Los Angeles in 2023. The top Waymo “cities” now include the San Francisco Bay Area at 1,000+ vehicles and Los Angeles at 700 vehicles. Two major California cities being epicenters for these robotaxis is no coincidence, with Waymo LLC headquartered in Silicon Valley.

In 2024, Waymo driverless vehicles in Los Angeles received 75 tickets with $543 in fines, igniting discussion around robotaxi regulation. That same year, Waymo vehicles in San Francisco received 589 tickets in parking violations, with the robots incurring $65,065 in fines. Incidents such as a police officer pulling an autonomous vehicle over after it made an illegal U-turn have illuminated accountability issues for this new form of transportation. It is therefore not surprising that many have been calling for Assembly Bill 1777 to be updated.

The first piece of legislation drafted for autonomous vehicles on the federal level in the United States was the SELF DRIVE Act in 2017. It managed to pass the U.S. House of Representatives but not both Chambers of Congress. Under the 2017 SELF DRIVE Act, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) would be required to access safety certifications for development of AVs.

With a focus on automated driving system (ADS) vehicles, the purpose of the Act was to “ensure continued United States leadership in the global automotive and autonomous driving sector, improve road safety, mobility, and accessibility, and create American jobs by creating rules and regulations that relate to the design, construction, and performance of ADS-equipped vehicles and by encouraging the testing and deployment of such vehicles.” The SELF DRIVE Act clarified that driverless vehicles must conform to the law and be capable of dynamic driving tasks (DDT). Representative Robert “Bob” Latta introduced the Act years before Waymo launched their autonomous vehicle service for the public.

The SELF DRIVE Act of 2026, a new bill introduced by Rep. Latta, would update the Act for this new era of AVs. It expands upon previous ADS terminology to provide more specific regulation for driverless vehicles. Discussion continues on a federal and state level about how to regulate and monitor AVs on the road. The new regulation for Assembly Bill 1777 allowing AV vehicle manufacturers to be ticketed in California is a step in the right direction – at least for that state and as a model for others to trial. Once in effect for a period of time, it will also produce valuable data to guide future reforms and other policymaker efforts. The bill is significant not only for robotaxi regulation but driverless vehicle regulation more broadly in the United States.

Despite the contentious debate around the role of self-driving vehicles in modern America, it is important for new legislation and prudent regulatory oversight to continue being developed to find and hold those responsible for automated system failure.

Written by Samuel Corral, Public Policy Intern