Police in California Warn of Autonomous Car Loophole: No Driver, No Ticket

Police say they can’t do anything when they observe a driverless car breaking traffic laws.

Via San Bruno Police Department
San Bruno police complain that if they pull over a driverless car, all they can do is contact Waymo to let them know about the incident. Since there was no human driver, a ticket couldn't be issued, the police department noted. Via San Bruno Police Department

When police in California pulled over a car for a traffic violation during the weekend, they couldn’t issue a ticket to the driver — there wasn’t one.

The San Bruno Police Department says it was conducting a DUI enforcement operation and officers saw a car make an illegal U-turn right in front of them.

They pulled over the Jaguar and found no one inside.

“No driver, no hands, no clue,” is what the department said in a social media post.

Officers say all they could do was contact the company responsible for the car, Waymo, to let it know about the incident.

Because there was no human driver, a ticket couldn’t be issued, the police department noted.

“Our citation books don’t have a box for ‘robot’,” the department joked.

A new law will go into effect on July 1, 2026, that will authorize police to issue notices to companies that deploy autonomous vehicles when they break traffic rules, but details of any possible fines are still being worked out by the state’s motor vehicle department.

Other states with autonomous vehicles on the road, notably Arizona and Texas, have already taken stronger positions on enforcement.

Those two states updated their laws to allow the owners of the vehicles to be cited, even if there is no human in the vehicle, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Google-owned Waymo has deployed driverless cars at San Bruno since June. Police say they hope the vehicles can be reprogrammed to keep them from making any more illegal turns.

The city is a suburb of San Francisco, where residents have complained about driverless taxis operated by the company.

Residents in one neighborhood say the autonomous vehicles circle the area with their lights on and honk when approaching other cars, disturbing them at all hours.


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