AMENDED IN SENATE JANUARY 5, 2026
AMENDED IN SENATE APRIL 8, 2025
AMENDED IN SENATE MARCH 26, 2025
CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2025–2026 REGULAR SESSION
96
Introduced by Senator Pérez
February 19, 2025
An act to amend Section 38750 of, and to add Sections 38750.5, 38756, and 38757 to, the Vehicle Code, relating to autonomous vehicles. An act to amend Section 8995 of the Education Code, relating to pupil nutrition.
Vote: majority Appropriation: no Fiscal committee: no Local program: no
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST
Under existing law, the Legislature encourages school administrations to (1) offer wellness programs that include personalized instruction about healthy eating and physical activity and (2) ensure that the nutrition services, health services, and social services pupils need in order to learn are provided at the schoolsite or in cooperation with other community agencies.
This bill would state that the Legislature encourages school administrations, if the school maintains an internet website, to post on the school’s internet website information about community programs that offer nutrition assistance to families.
This bill would instead require those zero-emission vehicle provisions to commence January 1, 2028, and apply to an autonomous vehicle with a model year of 2028 or later. This bill would revise the definition of autonomous vehicle to include a vehicle equipped with autonomous technology that meets the definition of Level 2 of that standard and restrict that definition only to the April 2021 version of the standard. The bill would also clarify that an autonomous vehicle has the ability to intentionally depart from its current lane of travel on a marked roadway while under the control of a driving automation system. This bill would delete the active control or monitoring exception and instead exclude systems that enhance safety or provide driver assistance that are not capable of sustained automated steering of the vehicle.
(2) Existing law requires the department to adopt regulations setting forth, among other things, requirements for the submission of evidence of insurance, a surety bond, or self-insurance. Existing law authorizes the department to establish additional requirements that are necessary to ensure the safe operation of an autonomous vehicle on public roads, including, among others, new license requirements for the operator of an autonomous vehicle.
This bill would additionally require the department to adopt regulations for training, testing, and application fees necessary to recover all reasonable regulatory costs incurred by the department to implement autonomous vehicle-related provisions, as well as administrative fines and penalties for violating specified provisions. The bill would require the department to adopt any regulation necessary to implement these provisions to ensure the safe operation of an autonomous vehicle on public roads. The bill would, if the department adopts a special driver’s license designation for an operator of an autonomous vehicle, require an operator to have that designation prior to operating an autonomous vehicle. By creating a new infraction for operating an autonomous vehicle without a special driver’s license designation, contingent upon the department adopting that designation, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program.
(3) Existing law prohibits a person from making specific modifications to a vehicle, including, among other things, adding a whistle-tip to the exhaust system of a motor vehicle. For purposes of autonomous vehicles, existing law defines a “manufacturer” as the person who manufactures a vehicle and equips autonomous technology on the originally completed vehicle or, in the case of a vehicle not originally equipped with autonomous technology, the person who modifies the vehicle by installing autonomous technology to convert it to an autonomous vehicle.
This bill would make it a crime to modify a vehicle with before-market or aftermarket additions of software to give the vehicle the functionality of an autonomous vehicle. The bill would make it a crime to sell, lease, or transfer title to a vehicle that has been modified to make it an autonomous vehicle. This bill would make a violation of these provisions punishable by a fine not exceeding $10,000, by imprisonment, as specified, or by both that fine and imprisonment. The bill would require an autonomous vehicle owned or operated in this state that is manufactured after January 1, 2028, to be equipped with an electronic sensing device that can detect the presence of an unattended child under 6 years of age or a pet left inside the vehicle and for the vehicle to have the ability to notify the vehicle’s owner or first responders of the presence of the unattended child or pet. By creating new crimes, this bill would establish a state-mandated local program.
(4) The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.
This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.
The people of the State of California do enact as follows:
SECTION 1.
Section 8995 of the Education Code is amended to read:
8995.
The Legislature encourages school administrations to do the following:
(a) Offer wellness programs that include personalized instruction about healthy eating and physical activity.
(b) Ensure that the nutrition services, health services, and social services children pupils need in order to learn are provided at the schoolsite or in cooperation with other community agencies.
(c) If the school maintains an internet website, post on the school’s internet website information about community programs that offer nutrition assistance to families.
All matter omitted in this version of the bill appears in the bill as amended in the Senate, April 8, 2025. (JR11)