Let People Choose Not to Drive

200,000 Waymo Rides in the U.S. vs. Korea’s Confined Pilot Services

The Contradiction of Protecting Vested Interests and Bureaucratic Regulation Hidden Behind “Safety”

A Shift in the Regulatory Paradigm Is Needed: From Positive to Negative Regulation, Centered on Ex Post Accountability

In the United States, about 600,000 privately owned autonomous vehicles are on the roads, and robotaxis operating without a driver on board run routinely in California, Texas, and Arizona. Waymo handles more than 200,000 paid rides per week, and Tesla reflects data from hundreds of thousands of autonomous vehicles in its real-time learning.

What about Korea? In practice, it permits only pilot services that operate only on designated routes and at designated times, such as Seoul Autonomous Car, while it is effectively impossible for individuals to purchase autonomous vehicles and use them freely.

This is not simply a matter of a technology gap. It is a problem of regulatory design. Korea is already blocking new suppliers from entering the market through the special privilege of taxi licenses. As seen in the TADA controversy, whenever innovative transportation services emerge, opposition from incumbent industries and political pressure have built the regulatory wall even higher.

This fundamentally blocks gains in consumer welfare that would come from an increase in suppliers and effectively preserves the profits of existing privileged interests. Consumers are being systematically deprived of the opportunity to enjoy lower prices and better services.

Regulatory authorities present stringent approval and licensing standards for autonomous vehicles on the grounds of “safety.” Of course, safety is important. But what the current regulatory framework effectively implies is the suppression of technological innovation, protectionism for existing industries, and the blocking of gains in consumer welfare. It is a logical contradiction to invoke safety as a justification while not applying the same standard to the dangers of human driving, which causes thousands of deaths every year.

Some analyses suggest that the technology gap between Tesla and Waymo—widely regarded as leaders in autonomous driving—and Korean firms exceeds five years. But the more serious issue is not the technology gap itself, but the structural cause of that gap. In the regulatory environment for autonomous driving, which began taking shape in the early 2010s, the United States allowed companies to develop the technology first, test it on public roads, and accumulate data.

Korea, however, permitted only limited experimentation within the bounds approved by the government. The core issue is that as long as regulators cannot keep up with the speed of technological change yet refuse to relinquish their licensing authority, the incentive structure for innovation must be fundamentally redesigned.

When new technology emerges, the market should be allowed to respond first, and consumers should be able to choose. Innovation is possible only if Korea moves away from bureaucratic regulation—in which the government judges the suitability of technology in advance and decides whether to permit it.

The direction of change is clear. Korea must shift from “positive regulation,” under which only actions explicitly permitted by law are allowed, to “negative regulation,” under which anything not prohibited by law is allowed. If autonomous vehicles meet certain safety standards, the government should guarantee their free operation on the roads rather than individually prescribing their routes and hours. A system should be in place to assign responsibility after problems occur, but innovation itself must not be blocked in advance.

The freedom not to drive is a freedom that technology has already made possible. What blocks that freedom is not the limit of technology but the inertia of regulation. Korea now stands at a crossroads. Will it remain a technological laggard behind regulatory walls, or will it restore freedom to the market and consumers and take the lead in innovation?

Philip Chung

Researcher, Center for Free Enterprise (CFE)

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Original title: 운전하지 않을 자유를 허하라

Author: Philip Chung

Date: 2026-03-18

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=press&idx=28706