Roundup: U.S. state of Arizona welcomes self-driving test vehicles

The southwestern U.S. state of Arizona embraced a friendly attitude toward self-driving test vehicles, as its governor Doug Ducey personally welcomed the first batch of Uber's fleet arriving here Friday.

The car-hailing service provider has turned its attention to Arizona, after the Department of Motor Vehicles of California, where it was originally headquartered, revoked its autonomous vehicle registration last week. Uber decided last Thursday to have its self-driving cars delivered via a self-driving truck to Phoenix, capital of Arizona, for future pilot tests.

While in Arizona, it seems that the governor is seeking a balance between attracting technology businesses and regulatory issues.

Arizona is popular with companies focusing on self-driving technologies, as the Grand Canyon state has less regulations in this regard. Besides Uber, General Motors (GM), Google and Ford have chosen Arizona as their self-driving test ground.

Although Ducey had asked the Department of Transportation (ADOT) and the Department of Public Safety to come up with rules and regulations for autonomous vehicles, he emphasized that he saw no reason for any special registration for these cars, or for doing nothing until the task force comes up with relevant rules. He just told local media that these cars were to be insured.

Kevin Biesty, ADOT's deputy director for policy, agreed. He was quoted as saying that he understood that the task force would have to deal with questions ranging from whether those behind the wheel of truly autonomous vehicles need to be licensed to who was legally liable if a computer-driven vehicle speeds or causes damage, but the lack of answers to these questions should not preclude the kind of testing that Uber and other companies want to do on Arizona roads.

He added that the Uber autonomous vehicles in their current stage of development do not need special permission or special rules for testing in Arizona.

He took GM's "advanced cruise control" system, which was first tested in Arizona, as an example, saying this system being installed on many GM vehicles had the ability to change the car's speed to avoid accidents.

According to the local newspaper Arizona Capitol Times, Ducey said that Uber's decision to move to Arizona showed the state was more friendly to businesses than its neighbor to the west.

"The message today is Arizona's open for business. We're welcoming this technology. We're not pushing it out of our state," the governor said.

As more and more companies develop their self-driving cars, safety issues arise, especially after a driver of a Tesla operating on an automated driving system died of a collision with a truck in Florida in May, America's first fatality concerning the new technology.

In Arizona, Google has been testing its self-driving Lexus SUVs for 4 months, while Ford has been conducting road tests for its self-driving Fusion for nearly two years. Endi