California’s state Senate transportation committee on Tuesday passed a bill 7-2 that would require autonomous vehicle companies to employ their own technicians — one for every three self-driving cars — capable of responding to emergencies within 10 minutes. The legislation was introduced by state Sen. Dave Cortese, D-San Jose, after San Francisco experienced a large-scale multi-day power outage that left Waymos and other autonomous vehicles frozen in place across the city, blocking intersections and streets on Dec. 20. “It was the start of an absolutely catastrophic, multi-day blackout, a complete disaster,” said Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco. The four-part bill would require autonomous vehicles to: - Require anyone overseeing or responding to a commercial autonomous vehicle on California roads to be U.S.-based and hold a valid California driver’s license - Employ autonomous vehicle technicians at a minimum 3-to-1 ratio, on call with no more than a 10-minute response time - Give emergency service workers the ability to operate autonomous vehicles in emergency situations - Collect and submit data to the DMV on technicians employed, incidents, emergency moves and related activity. Present to support the bill was a broad coalition, including California Professional Firefighters, Service Employees International Union California, California Federation of Labor, California Police Chiefs Association, California Gig Workers Union, and more than a dozen rideshare drivers. Representatives from Waymo also attended the meeting but they did not address the committee. During the blackout, first responders and city workers could not move the vehicles without help from the companies — which meant waiting on hold for an offshore call center to remotely move the vehicle or grant instructions for the first responder to do so. Robotaxis could see ‘public backlash’ amid job loss fears, San Diego study says One first responder waited on hold for an operator for 53 minutes,