{"id":312389,"date":"2026-05-28T13:41:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T13:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/312389\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T13:41:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T13:41:07","slug":"a-look-at-the-state-of-autonomous-vehicles-in-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/312389\/","title":{"rendered":"A look at the state of autonomous vehicles in Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"

TEXAS \u2014 Starting Thursday, May 28, a new law has gone into effect<\/a> across Texas roadways, but it\u2019s not for drivers. It\u2019s focused is on autonomous vehicles (AVs).<\/p>\n

The new law puts a lot of authority on the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles to make sure driverless cars have proper authorization to carry paid passengers.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the latest in a series of state laws dating back to 2017 that regulate AVs, and it\u2019s one way our state could lead the nation in setting a precedent for driverless cars.<\/p>\n

More commercial rides have been given in driverless cars in Texas more than anywhere else. And that\u2019s taught us a lot about what it\u2019s like to share the road when there\u2019s no one in the driver\u2019s seat.<\/p>\n

From Waymo to Tesla to Avride, roughly 300 fully autonomous vehicles operate on Austin roads alone, with even more now in Dallas, San Antonio and Houston. For riders, it\u2019s an experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cI called a Waymo by accident. I had no idea what I was getting into. At first, I was terrified. Then I FaceTimed my parents. They said, \u2018You better be wearing your seat belt,\u2019\u201d one first-time rider said.<\/p>\n

Some people love it, while some are still not sure what to make of it.<\/p>\n

From Austin to cities nationwide, thousands of AVs are rolling out. But Texas came first, thanks to a law putting AVs under state control, not city control. That means companies face one set of rules statewide instead of a patchwork from city to city.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Texas Legislature passed a law on autonomous vehicles back in 2017. What it did is it says municipalities cannot have additional regulations on these cars on top of the state,\u201d said David Dunmoyer with the Texas Public Policy Foundation.<\/p>\n

That legal green light helped make Austin one of the biggest and earliest\u00a0proving grounds in the country. But the test drives came with some detours, which raises another question: what happens when something goes wrong?<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re going to be a little bit slower on some of their approaches, so you have to keep that in mind when you are\u00a0sharing the road with an autonomous vehicle,\u201d said Daniel Armbruster with AAA Texas.<\/p>\n

That may sound simple, but in the moment, it may not feel simple at all. Just recently in Austin, a\u00a0Waymo was caught on camera blocking emergency crews<\/a> responding to a deadly shooting downtown. Across social media, the vehicles have been spotted speeding through school zones in the city and stopping unexpectedly on train tracks.<\/p>\n

Which leaves the question: are AVs safer than human drivers?<\/p>\n

To find out, we pulled every crash report in Austin over the past three years. In 2025 alone, there were about 12,000 crashes citywide. Only 85 involved autonomous vehicles. But that number can be misleading because of the 834,000 total vehicles on Austin roads and only about 300 are fully autonomous.<\/p>\n

To get a fair comparison, we compared crash rates. Only approximately 1% of human-operated cars were involved in a crash. For vehicles operating with no human driver, that number increases to 28%.<\/p>\n

We examined injuries as well. Crashes involving human drivers led to about 8,000 injuries and 99 deaths. Autonomous vehicle crashes resulted in eight injuries and no deaths. Per vehicle, autonomous cars crash more often, but the crashes tend to be far less severe.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf\u00a0Waymo is engineering their cars to be more cautious such that it\u2019s fender benders and not T-bone accidents, what does it look like in terms of the accidents per capita writ large?\u201d Dunmoyer said.<\/p>\n

So the question is not whether these vehicles make mistakes \u2014 they do \u2014 the question is whether they make fewer deadly ones. Waymo\u2019s chief security officer says test drives like the ones in Texas make roads safer.<\/p>\n

\u201cData from our first 127 million fully autonomous miles indicates our driver is 10 times less likely to be involved in a serious injury or worse crash compared to human drivers,\u201d said Waymo representative Mauricio Pe\u00f1a.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers in Washington are still trying to decide who should regulate them and how.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmerica is at a crossroads in transportation policy,\u201d said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. \u201cMy home state of Texas understands that clear rules enable growth, investment and safety. But AVs can\u2019t just stop at Texas\u2019 border.\u201d<\/p>\n

In February, leaders in Congress, including Cruz,\u00a0debated if state governments or the federal government should decide AV laws.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout federal oversight, we risk a fragmented patchwork of state laws,\u201d said Cruz.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s not kid ourselves. While self-driving technology is exciting, it has a long way to go and our regulatory system is incredibly behind,\u201d said Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois.<\/p>\n

For now, the future is already here. And the question is not whether to share the roads with them \u2014 you\u2019re already doing that \u2014 it\u2019s whether people in charge of keeping you safe are moving just as fast as these cars are.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEXAS \u2014 Starting Thursday, May 28, a new law has gone into effect across Texas roadways, but it\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81852,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2160,132,1570,102,56,82,13214,3621,27,29,28,1569,2053,835],"class_list":["post-312389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-app-top-stories","tag-austin","tag-ctv","tag-dallas","tag-houston","tag-san-antonio","tag-spectrum-news-staff","tag-technology","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-texas-what-you-need-to-know","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}