California lawmaker proposes crack down on driverless cars loophole

cars in California could be forced to follow a new set of laws after an NBC News investigation exposed a lack of penalties when they violate the rules of the road bad sheban of our Bay Area station has details and new reporting on safety concerns close call in the crosswalk as these adults in San Francisco Rush two kids out of the way to avoid being hit and then do a double take as they watch the car cruise by with no driver the so-called Robo Taxi is operated by Cruz the embattled driverless ca

r company largely owned by General Motors that's now the subject of at least five separate government probes and just one day after that near miss last summer 7-year-old Luke says the same thing happened to him and his parents across town I started to like go a little faster because it was heading towards you yeah and then it sve this way did you worry it was going to hit you yeah if I didn't run it would have hit probably so this is where you crossed that day exactly Sasha Rio is Luke's D you t

hought it was safe to cross here because you saw the cruise car stop at the stops sign fully stopped fully stopped and then it started when we had gotten maybe a third of the way or halfway across the intersection and it started to accelerate Transportation documents we obtained show that California DMV is now investigating but Cruz which pulled its entire fleet off the road last fall amid safety concerns says its records show none of its driverless cars traveled through that specific intersecti

on around the time the family says they were almost hit crw adding we are committed to operating with safety and transparency and continue to investigate this incident Sasha says there's no mistaking the logo he saw and I was just angry super angry that my kid could have been hurt or killed by this Cruise vehicle critics argue driverless cars lack oversight late last year year we reported on a loophole that's been allowing some of the nation's driverless cars to avoid penalties when they break t

he rules of the road here in California we discovered traffic tickets have to be issued to an actual person so driverless cars have pretty much been immune to those fires it's really been a very glaring hole in the law California assemblyman Phil Ting wants companies held liable and traffic tickets sent to them so he's pushing for a new state law following our investigation really appreciate that story for coming out and highlighting frankly the need for the legislation that I'm that I'm introdu

cing the autonomous vehicle industry Association says it's open to change Jeff Farah is the group's CEO if there is clarification that needs to be made in California we are committed to sitting down and working that through with the appropriate policy makers but even if the bill gets the green light driverless cars will likely be able to continue steering clear of those traffic fines until the new law goes into effect next year batan NBC News San Francisco thanks for watching stay updated about

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