| Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... | Californians took more than 1.2 million rides in commercial self-driving cars in December, a 500% increase in 19 months, according to the Public Utilities Commission. The autonomous vehicle market, which grew from fewer than 200,000 rides statewide in May 2024, was outlined at a conference on the future of the technology in San Francisco on Friday. The annual Autonomous Vehicles and the City Symposium showed how policymakers and regulatory agencies are confronting new problems that arise from the rapidly growing industry. AVs have the potential to reduce traffic deaths because they remove the problem of human error, said Adetokunbo Omishakin, the state Secretary of Transportation. California had about 4,000 traffic fatalities in 2023, according to the state Office of Traffic Safety. “A big responsibility for us is to drive those fatality numbers,” Omishakin said. “Our hope is to reduce the fatality numbers by 30% by reducing crashes caused by human error, AVs hold a powerful potential for saving life.” AVs also may play a role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the future of automated public transit systems. “If we’re going to be able to achieve those goals, it’s going to continue to take technology to help us,” Omishakin said. “All of these benefits are possible with AVs, but it will take strong partnership and governance and an active commitment to shape the trajectory of this technology into the future.” The theme of this year’s symposium focused on the challenges of adopting new policies and regulations while not stifling innovation in the AV industry. “We need to make sure that we are having good regulation to protect public safety and to benefit the public without strangling technology and without putting requirements on AVs that are not possible to meet,” said state Sen.