How free-wheeling When Texas became the promised land for the self-driving trucking business,

FORT WORTH, Texas (Reuters) – All roads lead to Texas for companies trying to make self-driving trucks a reality in the near future.

Texas is the best place for the industry because it has a lot of highways, a growing freight market, and the least restrictive laws for autonomous vehicles (AVs) in the United States.

Several companies, including Aurora Innovation and TuSimple, plan to put fully driverless trucks on the interstates of Texas next year. This is a change from the testing that is being done now, which involves having a backup safety driver behind the wheel.

Some small-scale tests of driverless 18-wheelers have been done in Arizona, but a launch in Texas would be the first time they are used for business. Waymo Via, which is owned by Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), and Gatik, a startup that makes box trucks and has Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) as a customer, are setting up hubs there to get ready.

Companies have spent billions of dollars making technology that they say will make roads safer and help with the lack of truck drivers. Analysts think that the market for self-driving trucks in the U.S. will grow quickly over the next ten years and will be worth between $250 billion and $400 billion by 2030.

The director of innovation at the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), Darran Anderson, said that the state has decided to work together with the industry.

But those who care about safety are worried.

“Putting this technology on the market too quickly and using regular drivers as beta testers in real-world driving situations puts everyone at risk,” said Ware Wendel, the executive director of Texas Watch, an organization that looks out for consumers.

The Texas Department of Public Safety, which is in charge of regulating AVs, didn’t answer when asked for a comment.

Texas’s autonomous vehicle bill was passed in 2017, making it possible to test and use driverless cars without special registration, data sharing, or extra insurance requirements. The law also says that cities can’t add their own requirements.

A Gatik executive and safety researchers said that the bill is being used as a model when the industry tries to get other states to regulate self-driving cars.

Proponents of safety say that companies are trying to turn states against each other by threatening to move jobs to places with less strict rules.

The companies say that safety is their top priority, and testing on public roads lets them fine-tune and scale their technology in real-world conditions.

There has never been a crash in Texas that was caused by an autonomous vehicle, but the U.S. Transportation Department (DOT) says that the state has the most trucking accidents that kill people every year.

Texas has some of the fastest-growing cities in the country as well as several ports where people can come from Mexico. It is also in the middle of one of the busiest freight routes in the U.S., the Atlanta-Los Angeles route, which the U.S. DOT says is used by more than 8,500 trucks every day. Companies that make self-driving cars want to automate a lot of these highways.

Hillwood’s huge AllianceTexas logistics zone near Fort Worth, which has a freight airport, rail yard, and huge regional hubs for Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN), FedEx (NYSE: FDX), and UPS, hopes to attract more autonomous trucking.

The 27,000-acre complex is home to hubs for both TuSimple and Gatik. Hillwood is creating infrastructure that is friendly to robotrucks by reducing left turns that are harder because they cut through traffic, installing 5G networks, and building warehouse docks that are made for AVs, said Ian Kinne, who is in charge of logistics innovation at Hillwood.

For trucking companies, a big part of what makes Texas so appealing is its cooperative regulatory system.

Aidan Ali-Sullivan, Waymo’s state policy manager, said, “There are other states with really great ports or connections, but they don’t have the same regulatory environment as Texas.”

Since federal rules about AVs have been stuck for a few years, it’s up to each state to figure out its own rules.

Drone regulations in the United States: http://tmsnrt.rs/3NTJMFo

Waymo, Aurora, TuSimple, and Gatik all said they talk to state and local officials in Texas all the time.

TxDOT’s Anderson said, “The state is not letting these vehicles run however they want.” They have to follow traffic laws.“

With the goal of getting Texas ready for self-driving cars, the state set up an industry task force with about 200 members, including AV companies, automakers, researchers, and government officials.

The business world has been trying to get other states, like Kansas, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania, to do the same thing.

Richard Steiner, who is in charge of policy at Gatik, said, “It’s a well-structured model and method that other states can use.”

Last month, Kansas signed its own bill into law. The office of the governor could not be reached for comment.

Phil Koopman, an engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon who keeps an eye on AV regulation, fought against bills in Kansas and Pennsylvania.

“Even if (the companies) want to do the right thing, they are under unimaginable pressure to save money,” he said.

Greg Winfree, who runs the Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University, said he saw no signs that companies were putting out their technology in a careless way.

Winfree, who is also part of the state-led AV task force, is now working on campaigns to inform Texans about the technology that will soon be around them.

“We need to get to a point where seeing a self-driving car doesn’t make people scared or want to take pictures or videos,” he said.