California DMV says Uber’s self-driving San Francisco tests are illegal
The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has told Uber that its pilot testing programme for self-driving vehicles in San Francisco are illegal because the company has not obtained a permit. As previously reported by Post&Parcel, Anthony Levandowski, Head of Uber’s Advanced Technology Group, announced the San Francisco pilot in blog post yesterday (14 December). In the blog, Levandowski raised the issue of whether Uber needed permits and said: “We have looked at this issue carefully and we don’t believe we do.”
Levandowski reasoned that: firstly, Uber wasn’t planning to “operate any differently than in Pittsburgh”, where it has already been running a pilot “successfully for several months”; and secondly, the rules are for “cars can drive without someone controlling or monitoring them” whereas Uber’s cars “are not yet ready to drive without a person monitoring them”.
In the event, it appears California DMV has taken the view that Uber will have to follow the rules – just like everybody else. The authority has not banned Uber from testing, but it has insisted that the company must get a permit.
In a letter sent to Levandowski, the California DMV said: “Had Uber obtained an autonomous vehicle testing permit prior to today, the company’s launch would have been permissible.” And a terse statement posted on its website yesterday reads: “The California DMV encourages the responsible exploration of self-driving cars. We have a permitting process in place to ensure public safety as this technology is being tested. Twenty manufacturers have already obtained permits to test hundreds of cars on California roads. Uber shall do the same.”
In addition to the letter from the California DMV, Uber’s self-driving car also encountered a red light of a more literal kind on its first day of testing on the streets of San Francisco. The Volvo XC90 “ran a red light” and – unfortunately for Uber – the event was recorded on the in-car camera of a cab driver and the video has since been posted on youtube. Uber reportedly said that the incident was due to “human error”.
