TIL. I stand corrected. Though worth pointing out (as the article does) that on September 1st, new legislation in Texas was passed adding some restrictions to autonomous vehicles. So seems reasonably likely this is more regulatory than necessary.

I wonder what motivated Texas, who was famously very open to such testing, to tighten down the regulations more after time?

I take back my "standing corrected" actually. It appears that the safety person being in the driver seat is only for trips involving highways, which Waymo hasn't launched yet either.