Picture a supply chain where goods move continuously across the country, less constrained by driver fatigue, rigid schedules, and mandatory rest periods. Trucks that don’t get drowsy at 2 a.m., don’t miss braking cues, and don’t sit idle simply because a human operator has reached the end of a shift. The result could be fewer accidents, faster deliveries, and lower costs on everything from groceries to construction materials.
The future of American freight is already taking shape in the form of autonomous trucking. But it will arrive only if policymakers refuse to let special interests use regulation to freeze yesterday’s labor model into law.
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That tactic is not new. For decades, transportation unions have sought rules requiring more workers than the work itself demands. In the railroad industry, the practice was long known as “featherbedding” — the use of labor rules to preserve jobs even when technology or changing operations made them unnecessary. The same impulse resurfaced after the 2023 East Palestine, Ohio, derailment triggered a national political fight over rail safety. Labor-backed proposals in Washington would require minimum railroad crew sizes regardless of operational need, even after investigators found the derailment was caused by equipment failure, not crew size.
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Now the same strategy is being deployed against autonomous trucking.
Lawmakers in multiple states are considering “driver-in” mandates for autonomous trucks, which would require a human operator to remain behind the wheel even when the vehicle is capable of driving itself. Supporters frame the policy as a safety measure. But the politics surrounding these bills reveal the deeper purpose: protecting incumbent jobs from technological change.
The Teamsters have been explicit about the nationwide campaign. In Maryland, Teamsters locals testified in support of HB 1447, a bill that would require a human operator in large commercial autonomous vehicles. The union’s own release said similar legislation had been introduced in California, Iowa, Indiana, and New York. In California, the Teamsters-backed AB 2286 would have required a trained human operator behind the wheel of self-driving trucks weighing more than 10,000 pounds, with the union saying the bill would preserve “hundreds of thousands of good-paying union jobs.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) vetoed similar legislation in 2023 and again rejected a related autonomous-truck measure in 2024, arguing that existing regulatory agencies were better positioned to oversee safety. In Colorado, Teamsters backed House Bill 26-1286, which would allow voters to decide whether commercial autonomous vehicles over 26,000 pounds must have human operators. In Alaska, the House recently advanced a bill that would require a human safety operator for commercial self-driving vehicles, justified in part by concerns over the state’s unique weather and road conditions.
These bills are not isolated safety measures but part of a coordinated campaign to slow a technology that threatens an entrenched labor model.
The safety case for autonomous vehicles is stronger than critics acknowledge. The latest peer-reviewed data from Waymo is instructive. Driverless Waymo vehicles have driven 170 million miles through December 2025 without a human driver in the car. Compared to the average human driver over the same distance, Waymo driverless cars experienced 83% fewer airbag deployment crashes, 82% fewer injury-causing crashes, and 92% fewer serious injury or worse crashes.
That does not mean autonomous trucks should be exempt from reasonable safety oversight. States can require testing, reporting, insurance, emergency response protocols, and clear rules for deployment. But those rules should be tied to performance, not headcount. A safety regulation tests whether the vehicle can operate safely; a driver-in mandate makes that question irrelevant.
The difference is critical. If an autonomous truck cannot operate safely, it should not be on the road. But if it can operate safely without a human driver, requiring one anyway does not improve safety. It simply raises costs, slows deployment, and forces consumers to pay more.
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The United States has never prospered by forcing new technology to imitate the old system it improves upon. Policymakers should allow autonomous vehicles and trucking to develop under clear, evidence-based safety rules. They should not revive the logic of railroad featherbedding for the age of artificial intelligence.
Autonomous vehicles should be judged by their safety and performance, not by whether they preserve the labor arrangements of the past. The future of freight should be faster, safer, and less expensive. Policymakers should let it arrive.
Brian Norman is the Director of State Affairs at the Goldwater Institute, where he leads the Institute’s nationwide government affairs strategy.
