Teamsters sue California's DMV over the rules allowing automated heavy trucks

Teamsters California filed suit against the state Department of Motor Vehicles in Alameda Superior Court on August 5, seeking to void the regulations that allow automated driving systems to operate heavy commercial vehicles on public roads. The union announced the filing in a statement the same day.

The regulations, adopted in April 2026, allow vehicles weighing 10,001 pounds or more to operate fully autonomously on California roads. The union’s central allegation is procedural rather than technical. Under the state’s Administrative Procedure Act, a rule projected to cost or benefit the economy more than $50 million in its first twelve months counts as a major regulation and requires a Standardized Regulatory Impact Assessment. The petition said the DMV put first-year costs to private persons and businesses at $5.8 million, never completed an assessment, and reached that estimate without providing a basis for it.

A public-comment process did take place. The petition records that the DMV sought written comments through June 9, 2025 and held a public hearing the following day, and that the union filed comments of its own on June 6 arguing that the rules would exceed the $50 million threshold. Its case is that the missing assessment left the public unable to judge the rules’ economic effect, depriving them of what it called a full and fair comment process.

The petition asks the court to order the DMV to vacate the regulations, to declare that they are major regulations that required an assessment, to declare that the Department of Finance and the Office of Administrative Law erred in approving them, and to bar the DMV from enforcing them. The union is represented by the law firm Bush Gottlieb.

The account of the rulemaking is the union’s, set out in a verified petition filed on August 5 and linked from its announcement. The DMV’s response to the allegations is not part of the filing.

Source: Teamsters California, August 5, 2026.