LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear has for the second-consecutive year vetoed the Republican-dominated legislature’s attempt to allow driverless cars on Kentucky roads.
House Bill 7 “does not fully address questions about the safety and security” of driverless cars, nor mandate a testing period in which a human would have to be inside the autonomous vehicle and ready to intervene if necessary, Beshear said a veto message dated Friday.
“Opening Kentucky’s highways and roads to fully autonomous vehicles should occur only after careful study and consideration and an extensive testing period with a licensed human being behind the wheel, which is what other states have done before passing such laws,” Beshear said.
Those arguments echo comments Beshear made in 2023 when vetoing a previous version of the legislation.
Under the bill, Kentucky would join 23 states that have explicitly authorized the testing and deployment of autonomous vehicles since 2012, according to the Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association, a national trade group composed of driverless car companies like Google-linked Waymo and General Motors' Cruise.
Beshear, a Democrat, is an ally of organized labor, which opposes the bill.
"We encourage every lawmaker who supported this dangerous piece of legislation to reconsider their support for it, given the devastating impact it will have on middle-class jobs and motorist safety throughout the Commonwealth," said International Brotherhood of Teamsters General Secretary-Treasurer Fred Zuckerman, a former president of Teamsters Local 89 in Louisville, in a statement Tuesday.
The Teamsters union represents hundreds of thousands of truck and delivery drivers nationwide.
Republicans split on driverless cars
Republicans, who have super majorities in both houses of General Assembly, are not united in support of autonomous cars.
House Bill 7 passed the Senate 20-18 late last month, with 11 of the chamber’s 31 Republicans voting against it. That’s a narrower margin of support than the bill garnered in 2023.
Republicans will have the chance to override Beshear’s veto and put the autonomous car bill into law when they return for the final days of the legislative session on April 12 and April 15. They would have to pass the bill a second time in the House and Senate, among a flurry of expected veto overrides.
Asked about the chances of their acting on the driverless car bill, Senate Majority Floor Leader Damon Thayer, R-Georgetown said: “We will give it a try,” in a text message to WDRB News.
In 2023, lawmakers acted on the autonomous vehicle legislation on their final day of the session — too late to override Beshear’s veto.
The latest version would require a human back-up driver for the first two years — until July 31, 2026 — for autonomous heavy trucks weighing 62,000 pounds or more, though not for lighter vehicles.
On March 28, senators debated increasing the liability insurance coverage for each autonomous vehicle to $5 million, but ultimately voted to keep it at the bill’s $1 million.
The AV industry argues that driverless cars are in fact better drivers than people.
“I have complete confidence that we’re going to see the kind of results we’ve had from tens of millions of miles of driving, where they in fact are better than a human driver who gets tired, who may get intoxicated, who gets distracted by what’s going on in the cab — those autonomous vehicles will not,” said Sen. Gex Williams, R-Verona, during the March 28 floor debate.
