Teamsters California is suing the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and several other state agencies over the use of driverless trucks on highways. The union is trying to block updated state rules that allow permits for testing and operating heavy-duty autonomous vehicles.
The 34-page lawsuit was filed Aug. 5 in Alameda County Superior Court, asking the court to set aside the revised rules and to stop the state from enforcing them.
The union represents over 250,000 people across several industries and has been an outspoken opponent of fully autonomous vehicles on highways.
The Teamsters have raised two central concerns: public safety and the potential economic fallout. First, the union states that self-driving trucks weighing more than 10,000 pounds pose a danger to other drivers — and shouldn’t be allowed on the road without human supervision.
Why Teamsters are suing
The lawsuit also contends that California officials failed to complete the extensive economic study required by law.
Without the study, the union says the state has no real head count on potential job losses — though plaintiffs caution that self-driving trucks could “eventually wipe out the jobs of more than 200,000 employee semi-truck drivers working across California.”
The lawsuit warns the new rules pose an “existential threat” to hundreds of thousands of California drivers, sparking a broader battle over automation and worker protections in the state.
California has become a primary testing ground for driverless technology, with companies like Waymo, Zoox and Tesla racing to expand robotaxi service statewide — even as regulators and the public grapple with the risks of sharing the road with vehicles that have no one behind the wheel. Only recently did a new law pass allowing California police to ticket autonomous vehicles, marking new territory for the automobile industry.
The Teamsters, however, remain firm: human drivers are essential, and tech should not replace people on the road.
