California DMV closes driverless car traffic ticket loophole

3 min readUpdated May 1, 2026

The California Department of Motor Vehicles adopted regulations on April 28 that allow law enforcement to issue traffic citations to autonomous vehicle manufacturers when their driverless cars commit moving violations — closing a gap in enforcement that had left police with no recourse when robotaxis broke traffic laws.

The citation process works as follows: when a vehicle breaks a traffic law, an officer issues a Notice of AV Noncompliance to the company that made it, triggering a DMV investigation into whether fixes are needed. Should a manufacturer fail to resolve the underlying problem, the DMV has authority to curtail or cancel its operating permit entirely — potentially capping how many vehicles it can run, where they can go, how fast they can travel, and what weather conditions they are permitted to operate in.

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Clearing active emergency scenes is another obligation the rules impose: fleets must be repositioned out of designated zones no more than two minutes after local emergency officials issue the order, and companies are required to keep open communication channels with first responders, acknowledging directives within 30 seconds.

A string of recent incidents exposed the gaps these rules are meant to close. Waymo robotaxis snarled traffic around San Francisco intersections after a power outage last year, according to The New York Times. Emergency responders in Austin, Texas, faced a similar problem just last month when a Waymo blocked an ambulance headed to a shooting scene. Enforcement has posed its own puzzles: San Bruno officers stopped a Waymo for executing an illegal U-turn only to find no one to ticket, since no human was behind the wheel.

Waymo, a unit of Alphabet $GOOGL, said it was reviewing the new rules but declined further comment, according to The New York Times.

The rules were adopted in accordance with a 2024 California law that imposed additional oversight on autonomous vehicle technology, The Times reported. Other states, such as Arizona, already allow police to cite autonomous vehicles, but California's framework adds layers of enforcement tools that go beyond existing state-level models.

Beyond the citation and emergency response provisions, the regulations expand testing requirements — manufacturers must complete 50,000 miles of driverless testing for light-duty vehicles and 500,000 miles for heavy-duty vehicles before applying for commercial deployment permits. The rules also add licensing and training standards for remote operations personnel and modernize data reporting requirements to include system failures, vehicle immobilizations, and hard braking events.

The regulations additionally open California's market to heavy-duty autonomous vehicles — those weighing more than 10,001 pounds — for freight operations, and allow AV transit vehicles up to 14,001 pounds to be operated by public entities and universities.

Waymo has been expanding rapidly, providing about 400,000 paid rides per week across several U.S. cities and expecting to surpass one million weekly rides by the end of 2026. The company has drawn scrutiny from federal regulators over incidents near schools in Santa Monica and Austin, and its vehicles have been the focus of public protests in Los Angeles.

DMV Director Steve Gordon offered this assessment in a written statement: "California continues to lead the nation in the development and adoption of AV technology, and these updated regulations further demonstrate the state's commitment to public safety. These updates support the growth of the AV industry by enhancing public safety and transparency while adding additional accountability for AV manufacturers."

California is closing the legal loophole that let driverless cars dodge traffic tickets

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