More than half of American states now regulate self-driving vehicles, but Wyoming isn’t one of them. It’s likely only a matter of when, not if, that will occur as these cars start crowding the roads.
State Sen. John Kolb, R-Rock Springs, believes self-driving vehicles will be an inevitable part of Wyoming’s future despite their current liability issues.
“It’s obvious it’s coming, it’s obvious we’ll perfect the technology and that it will be a reality,” he said.
Drunk Driving Solution?
Some like Wyoming Department of Transportation Director Darin Westby said his agency is always looking at innovative technology to reduce crashes and believes that self-driving vehicles could significantly reduce drunk driving incidents.
Westby mentioned how out of the 104 traffic fatalities Wyoming recorded in 2024, 31 of these fatalities resulted from impaired driving crashes, and six fatalities from distracted driving crashes.
He said there were 270 impaired driving injury crashes and 227 distracted driving crashes in total.
“As the technology advances, self-driving vehicles could be a potential solution to those concerning behaviors drivers have nationwide,” Westby said.
As far as making it happen, however, Westby said his agency will leave that up to the Legislature. His only request is that the Legislature waits until the technology on these vehicles is proven to be able to handle Wyoming winters.
“The agency would want the technology to be well equipped to handle the harsh conditions of Wyoming's wintry, rural roads to ensure the safety of not just the occupants of the self-driving vehicle, but those driving around the autonomous vehicle as well,” Westby said.
Current Status
While no fully autonomous vehicles (AVs) are in regular use in the U.S. yet, some states have allowed for limited use, testing and pilot programs on public roads.
A Montana company is testing self-driving semitrucks.
There are no laws preventing their use in Wyoming at this time or testing them, but groups testing the vehicles in Wyoming are required to contact WYDOT and report their testing activity.
Many state legislatures have been trying to get ahead of self-driving vehicles that eventually will be on their roads by setting standards for operating the vehicles and rules for law enforcement if they see an autonomous vehicle breaking a traffic law.
For instance, Kentucky has established a minimum insurance requirement to protect drivers, passengers and pedestrians, should the vehicles be involved in an accident.
Twenty-nine states have regulations on the books for AVs. No states have banned their use yet. Wyoming has not set any standards yet.
Some states have already started developing regulations for commercial AVs as well, in anticipation for this industry.
State Rep. Landon Brown, R-Cheyenne, chair of the House Transportation Committee, said this is what most AV conversations in Wyoming have been about in recent years.
They’re Here
He doesn't ever expect to see many driven as passenger vehicles in the Cowboy State, but wouldn't be surprised to see many AV semis traveling along Interstate 80.
California enacted a law last year that will, among other things, require manufacturers to continuously monitor every autonomous vehicle on the road and designate a remote human operator to immobilize a vehicle if necessary.
The law also allows law enforcement to issue a notice of noncompliance when autonomous vehicles violate local traffic ordinances.
Similarly, Kolb said installing roadway sensors has been discussed in Wyoming before, but the cost of such a measure proved a hindrance.
“I don’t think the state of Wyoming would want to spend a lot of money on a system like that,” Kolb said.
Nearby Nebraska, Utah, Colorado and North Dakota have all legalized the use of autonomous vehicles in their states. Wyoming is one of 11 states to have not addressed the matter yet in its state Legislature.
Kolb, a member of the Senate Transportation, Highways and Military Affairs Committee, said he doesn’t see regulating AVs as much of a priority until their technology improves and hasn’t heard about any issues involving them in Wyoming.
He said he will consider taking up legislation if they start to become more prevalent. He worries that if the Legislature moves too quickly on the matter, it won’t craft legislation that actually protects people in Wyoming.
“I want to make sure that we’re careful, considerate and don’t leave the people in the state of Wyoming in a liability in dealing with these things or somebody crashing into you,” he said.
The closest the Legislature has come to pursuing AV regulation was a short interim discussion in Kolb’s Transportation Committee in 2023.
What About Liability?
His biggest concern about AVs is their liability, and who takes the blame for an accident involving one. In a normal accident, the point of liability is usually much less ambiguous.
“Who’s going to take the blame, a computer?” he questioned. “You’re going to have to take the responsibility. There’s no way around you having personal responsibility for control of the vehicle.”
Brown agrees and says he wants high liability insurance requirements for all AVs driven in Wyoming and $1 million insurance liability requirements for all AV semis.
Kolb agrees that getting car companies to program their AVs for Wyoming winters could also be a challenge.
“Most of the country doesn’t consider Wyoming much when they construct laws or software programming,” he said. “I don’t know if they’re going to be able to tackle that.”
Kolb said if companies can prove these elements of safety and show they're at least as safe as a human driver, he’d have no problem with them being driven in Wyoming. He expects a higher level of proficiency and performance from a human-driven machine.
“Yeah it’s coming, am I opposed to it? Not really, but it has to be done correctly and safely,” Kolb said.
Real Problems
Despite continued excitement and buzz over autonomous vehicles, the industry has a problem with consumer trust following a number of high-profile crashes.
In 2023, fear of autonomous vehicles rose from 55% to 68%, and trust in the technology dropped from 15% to 9%, according to surveys from the American Automobile Association.
In 2024, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration began an investigation into four crashes involving Teslas, operating with a partial-automation system, including one in which a pedestrian was killed.
“When they run over folks in California with autonomously driving vehicles, it doesn’t give me a lot of confidence that they got it figured out right now,” Kolb said.
He believes serious issues like these need to be wrinkled out before America can start taking AVs seriously.
Last year, Bloomberg reported that President Donald Trump’s administration intends to prioritize enacting federal regulations for autonomous vehicles, to get more AVs on the road.
According to Tesla’s Elon Musk, “We’ll move from supervised Full Self-Driving to unsupervised Full Self-Driving where you can fall asleep and wake up at your destination. It’s going to be a glorious future.
Musk’s comments were made during an October presentation where he unveiled a self-driving “robotaxi” that he claimed will cost less than $30,000 and be in operation this year.
As far as Kolb, he doesn’t have much interest in purchasing an AV, whether they become popular or safe.
“I think I trust myself with the years of experience I have to be a better driver than a self-driving vehicle,” he said. “I’ll put my life in my own hands.”
Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.
