Where Self-Driving Cars Go to Learn<br />“We needed our message to Uber, Lyft and other entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley to be<br />that Arizona was open to new ideas.” If the state had a slogan, he added, it would include the words “open for business.”<br />Mr. Ducey fired the regulator who hatched the idea of going after ride-hailing drivers<br />and shut down the entire agency, the Department of Weights and Measures.<br />Mr. Ducey also set up a “Self-Driving Vehicle Oversight Committee” comprised of transportation, public safety, insurance<br />and other regulators to advise “how best to advance the testing and operation of self-driving vehicles on public roads.” The group was not intended to create any new rules.<br />In March, Arizona experienced its first crash involving a driverless car, when a human-driven<br />vehicle collided with a self-driving Uber in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe.<br />The state insurance regulator, for example, said he would wait for the insurance industry to guide regulators on liability<br />policies for driverless cars, amid questions about who is responsible in a crash if the car isn’t driven by a human.<br />PHOENIX — Three weeks into his new job as Arizona’s governor, Doug Ducey made a move<br />that won over Silicon Valley and paved the way for his state to become a driverless car utopia.<br />Over the past two years, Arizona deliberately cultivated a rules-free environment for driverless cars, unlike dozens of other states<br />that have enacted autonomous vehicle regulations over safety, taxes and insurance.
