ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) — If you stood on a sidewalk in San Francisco, it probably wouldn’t take you long to see a self-driving car drop someone off.

This through the ride-hailing service Waymo.

While growing there and a few other spots, New York State law prevents fully autonomous technology on a large scale.

State Senator Jeremy Cooney, a Democrat, wants to eventually change that. That’s why he’ll be introducing legislation early next year that would allow for more driverless features in personal cars, with the goal of getting to fully autonomous as some point.

“We want to make sure New Yorkers aren’t getting left behind,” he said. “Whether they’re purchasing their own vehicles or exploring this type of technology, we want to make sure first and foremost it’s safe, so we want to test this technology on our roadways and not put anyone – passenger or pedestrian – in danger, and we want to make sure we’re having the same experience others places are having.”

Brad McAreavy with the Rochester Automobile Dealers Association says his members aren’t really talking about self-driving cars, but adds many new cars already offer a number of features, like lane guidance, that bring driving closer to that end point.

“It’s one of those things where you’re always on the edge of whether the technology works, whether it works in all circumstances, it’s really difficult to determine if we’re ready to go fully into it,” McAreavy said.

Tesla is a different story as it does offer a driverless mode, something McAreavy says falls in a gray area.

Cooney’s bill, the lawmaker says, seeks to address some of the vagueness that’s out there — but adds this only applies to personal vehicles and not commercial trucks, which comes with other safety issues and union concerns.

Cooney hitt the safety note hard there partly because there have been fatalities linked to self-driving cars.

Also, New York State some of these vehicles on the road as part of experiments in places like Buffalo and New York City.

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