Deep Dive into Colorado AV Law

The preamble to the Colorado law, Senate bill 17-213, gets straight to the heart of the disadvantages of human driving - too many roadway deaths and two million crashes a year across the US - as well as the expected advantages of autonomous vehicles (AV) - cost-efficient transportation, increased independence for youth, older adults, and people with disabilities, and Colorado's position as a tech leading state. I don't know if the last one is true, but that kind of statement is pretty standard either as an introduction to legislation or spoken out loud by politicians.

Totally driverless

The Colorado law specifically does not govern partially-autonomous vehicles, SAE levels 1-3, and states that these vehicles are already lawful to operate in the state. The law only addresses completely autonomous vehicles.

Colorado bans local governments within its borders, such as cities, towns, and counties, from regulating autonomous transportation at all, but the language is interesting. The pre-emption is for provisions that "set[] standards for an automated driving system that are different from the standards set for a human driver." The goal is to permit transportation unimpeded by jurisdictional lines. (That's a big weakness of transit and many taxi laws.) There's also an awareness demonstrated that we still live in a human-driver world, something I sometimes forget as I daily read about autonomous vehicles.

Warning: Because the Colorado statute is in all caps, as though the legislature feels it must scream out that a bill has passed, there will be a quote in all-caps-scream-mode coming up.

Of course

AVs must comply with state and federal laws.

Annual state department of transportation (CDOT) report to the legislature about AV testing.

Liability for crashes or other incidents will be determined according to state and federal law or common law. Doesn't this go without mention? In law school, I learned the basic lesson that unless a law states or strongly implies a change, current rules remain unaltered.

Government 101 - Proper design necessary to achieve interagency coordination

IF AN AUTOMATED DRIVING SYSTEM IS NOT CAPABLE OF COMPLYING WITH EVERY STATE AND FEDERAL LAW THAT APPLIES TO THE FUNCTION THE SYSTEM IS OPERATING, A PERSON SHALL NOT TEST THE SYSTEM UNLESS APPROVED BY THE COLORADO STATE PATROL AND THE COLORADO DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, IN ACCORDANCE WITH A PROCESS OVERSEEN BY THE COLORADO STATE PATROL AND THE COLORADO DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION. 

1. Requiring coordination, but not creating an incentive or enforcement to ensure it will be implemented does not always work when more than one government agency is involved. Perhaps Coloradans are more willing to collaborate than others.

2. It is merely a traffic infraction to violate this dual-agency-approval requirement, according to the next subsection of the law.

Now on to the next state. Actually, with the package of bills before Congress, these state laws and bills are likely just fun pieces for pondering