San Diego City Council took the first step in trying to regulate Waymo and other autonomous vehicle companies in San Diego.
In a unanimous 8-0 decision on Monday, Sept. 14, council members passed a resolution to request local control in the deployment of artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicles.
The resolution comes after the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) permitted Waymo to officially launch in San Diego on Sept. 1, without the city having a say in how the autonomous vehicle companies can operate.
“This is definitely not an anti-technology resolution; it’s not an anti-innovation resolution; this is about people,” said Councilmember Sean Elo Rivera following numerous public comments from residents, transportation workers and advocates both for and against the resolution.
Librado Rivera, co-founder and secretary of San Diego Drivers United, said what he hears most from drivers are their fears of losing their job and losing their ability to support their families.
The introduction of Waymo and possibly other autonomous vehicle companies at the San Diego Airport was an important point of contention during the meeting for both advocates and council members.
“That is one of the last places that taxi drivers can make a living,” said Councilmember Marni von Wilpert, who sits on the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority.
During a presentation at the beginning of the meeting, councilmembers Elo-Rivera and Marni von Wilpert’s staff underscored the public safety impact of autonomous vehicles. The presentation showed clips of Waymo vehicles stopping in the middle of traffic or blocking first responders during emergencies.
“This is unacceptable,” said von Wilpert. “When our firefighters, our police officers, our ambulance drivers, our AMTs are responding to a 911 life or death emergency, every second counts. … Nothing should be in their way. Not a company, not an algorithm, not an autonomous driverless vehicle.”
Adam Lane, state and local policy manager at Waymo, spoke against the resolution during public comments, calling it “extraordinarily premature.” He explained that Waymo followed an extensive review by the Public Utilities Commission, dating back to early 2025.
“Thousands of safe trips have already been completed,” Lane added before explaining that Waymo’s data showed a 94% reduction in serious injury-causing crashes. He also said that over 100,000 San Diegans have already joined their waitlist.
“We are deeply invested in local collaboration, having already trained nearly 300 San Diego first responders and partnered with airport leadership through three months of testing at San Diego Airport to ensure orderly, safe curbside operations,” Lane said.
Before the councilmembers voted to pass the resolution, four amendments were added regarding the reduction of empty vehicles in the streets, autonomous vehicles’ capabilities to safely stop on-demand during loss power outages or cyberattacks, passengers refraining from using bike lanes and crosswalks as pick-up spots and disability regulation compliance for any passenger service operations, including rideshare.
Elo-Rivera concluded with a warning about the fast-moving evolution of AI technologies.
“People building this technology are saying out loud that it’s moving faster than they can manage and they are asking for guardrails… Our job is to put people over profit and to not be the last people in the room to take those threats seriously.”
“What keeps me up at night is that there is a race in this country and it is quickly making its way to every state, city and community to be the first artificial intelligence,” added von Wilpert. “When the company that moves the fastest gets to decide what the rules are, that puts the public safety risk straight in our path.”
