Legal regulations for testing autonomous cars on public roads in Poland and California

Abstract

The current level of technological advancement allows for predicting that in the near future autonomous technology may be successfully used for the production of self-driving cars. Many companies (not necessarily related to the automotive sector) have spotted the chance of future profits and thus started working on testing and development of autonomous vehicles. The initiation of work has indicated the lack of possibility to test such vehicles on public roads. Several US states have taken active steps to develop and adopt legal regulations enabling testing of autonomous cars on public roads. One of the first states that introduced such regulations was California. Following the new legislative trends, in 2018, Poland adopted the Electromobility and Alternative Fuels Act, which allows for testing autonomous cars on public roads in Poland starting from 1 July 2019. This article aims to compare the newly introduced Polish Act with the Californian Regulations, which were a subject of case law and amendments based on past experience. The article intends to present the Californian legal institutions that could be used by the Polish legislator in future amendments of the Polish Act.