You're listening to There Auto Be A Law, the
Center for Auto Safety podcast with Executive
Director Michael Brooks, Chief Engineer Fred
Perkins, and hosted by me, Anthony Cimino. For
over 50 years, the Center for Auto Safety has
worked to make cars safer. Hey listeners, today
is Wednesday, March 18th, 2026. Still don't have
a flying car. Ooh, that should be my gaslight,
my childhood. Nope, that's not how we're going
to start things. We're going to start things
by finding my notes. So this is surprising. This
is out of AAA Newsroom. We'll start off with
this. I'm going to quote from an article we've
been linking to. New research from the AAA Foundation
for Traffic Safety published today finds that
15 % of all police reported crashes in 2023 involved
the driver who fled the scene. The highest percentage
recorded in any recent year. Is this just a declining
moral attitude of the American public? Is this
the new math? Is this school systems? No, really,
why is this happening? We don't know. This is
horrible. That becomes the bigger crime, doesn't
it? Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of factors here.
Obviously, I think a lot of the upturn in...
you know, crashes generally in the last few years
have kind of been placed on the pandemic and
some of the driving behaviors that seem to grow
around then aggressive driving, speeding and,
you know, drunk driving all seem to increase
during that period. But this is kind of like,
you know, not necessarily why. The crash is happening,
but why people are leaving the scene, and there
seem to be a number of factors there, you know,
one of which is one I think we have all noticed
would be that, you know, a potentially drunk
or driver using drugs hits another car or a pedestrian
flees because they don't want to get caught.
Similarly, you know, unlicensed drivers. don't
want to be cited for driving on a suspended license
or without a license and would leave the scene
to avoid those consequences. Also, I think, you
know, something that plays a role here are the
dramatic number of stolen vehicles, the increase
in vehicle thefts over the past few years, I
think would contribute to this somewhat since,
you know. People driving stolen cars also, after
a collision, don't want to be accountable and
will flee the scene as well. So there are a lot
of different reasons why this happened, but it
seems, you know, for the most part, it is, you
know, people who want to evade accountability
for the consequences of their own behavior. Ironic
loudism. There's a lot of louts out there now.
And I think there's a direct correlation, actually,
with the number of empty nip bottles that we
find by the side of the road now. You know, it's
a real plague of ignorance and just loudism.
Sorry, I don't think there's any one cause, but
there's only one result, which is just louts,
people who don't give a shit about other people.
Trying their best to evade responsibility. If
you had Fred using an arcane word on your bingo
card, please mark it off. Laut. Lautism. Well,
it's a good, perfectly good word. It's a great
word. It's just not used enough. It's like grocery.
Oh, it's different. I think it's important. How
do you combat lauts, right? I mean, that's something
we need to figure out here. You know, an area
that we obviously want to put a stop to and hold
bad drivers, drunk drivers, drunk drivers, unlicensed
drivers accountable for breaking the law. How
do you do that? I don't think you can fight it
unless you're fighting the whole bro culture
thing. I think it's more than bro culture. I
think it's not just as narrow as that. But I
imagine with a lot of and obviously in urban
areas, you have got. cameras everywhere so license
plates are recorded all over the place uh i wish
this kind of followed up and say how many of
these people that fled the scene were eventually
caught because because i imagine again it's like
the cover -up is worse than the crime like leaving
fleeing an accident is a much greater issue than
causing an accident because most times causing
an accident it's not a crime it's a it's an accident
that's what it is but you leave that accident
now you're a criminal right I didn't go to law
school. Yeah. No, I mean, yes. I mean, you are
leaving the scene of an accident and that is
a citable offense in every state. So there's
no question about that. I mean, I'm interested
in the countermeasures that are proposed here.
Obviously, one of them is going to be, you know,
cameras with, you know, automated license plate
readers. You know, there's some problematic.
camera systems there with their lack of cybersecurity
might be violating our privacy. Flock cameras
certainly come to mind there. And so there's
a little hesitance to deploy those everywhere.
I know there are a lot of communities around
the United States who are pushing back on the
installation of those types of cameras. But there
are also a lot of other. companies that that
make things like the automated license plate
readers you'll see mounted on police cars right
um that that you know there there are a lot of
you know but i mean i guess the difference there
obviously if a police car is on the scene of
a hit and run and able to detect the plate you
know there's a much better chance of catching
the driver there were some other interesting
there's something i'd never really thought of
was including this article which is that The
automated crash notification feature that we've
always been very supportive of, which essentially
if a vehicle crashes and there is a person who
is unresponsive, unable to exit the vehicle,
unable to call the police, the vehicle itself
essentially calls 911 and alerts emergency authorities
to the crash. I mean, there are even more advanced
systems there where they can give emergency personnel.
an insight into the crash forces and the type
of crashes there so that they can be prepared
to better assist victims when they get on scene.
But the other side of that system is that if
it's automatically reporting any significant
crash that occurs in the vehicle, then it is
in some ways kind of the tattletale on these.
folks who are fleeing the scene, you know, particularly
if it's their vehicle that is reporting the crash
and then they leave the scene. You know, the
law enforcement would have a connection there
that that would allow them to figure out who
it was and track them down. So this is not a
smart ass question. And I know that's hard for
listeners to understand. But but what is is actual
the downside to that happening? Is it just the
argument that. um my car's monitoring in me and
watching me and reporting on me is that the or
is there something else it's the same nonsense
yeah it's kind of the same nonsense we see in
the area of alcohol impairment detection and
in you know active um intelligent speed assistance
you know There's a subset of our population that
wants to push back on any type of technology
in and outside of vehicles that can, you know,
track bad actors and make sure that they're held
accountable. You know, we talked about it last
week in the context of someone claiming that,
I believe it was the alcohol detection systems
were somehow. you know, federal surveillance
tools, you know, the conspiracy theories around
this stuff have gone a little bit mad. I mean,
I think we need to kind of take a step back and
look at the problems we're addressing here, you
know, which involve. killing thousands of people
and injuring, you know, hundreds of thousands,
possibly millions of human beings every year.
And we have technologies that are relatively
simple and effective and cheap enough to install
in vehicles without incredibly raising the price
of cars. Why aren't we going ahead and doing
that and ignoring kind of this conspiratorial
nonsense that these are somehow, you know, surveillance
systems? It's, you know, I really think that
argument is stymieing. And I may even get to
this a little more in the Gaslight this week
involving NHTSA and alcohol detection. It's stymieing
progress in this area and preventing, you know,
technology from coming into cars that can significantly
cut the amount of fatal and injurious and just
overall traffic accidents every year or crashes
every year. So I'm curious for listeners of if
any of you are on that spectrum of saying I don't
want to be tracked and whatnot. If any of you
are using Google Maps, Apple Maps, some sort
of navigation system in your car or if you have
a mobile phone. I'm curious and I'm not being
a smartass about this because actually. So a
couple of weeks ago, my wife and I are driving
somewhere and I didn't turn on directions to
where we were going because it's a route we normally
go all the time. And she's like, why don't you
have this turned on? And I'm like. Two reasons.
One, I don't need it. I know where I'm going
to. I want to feel like a man again. OK, I know
how to drive like I don't need this thing babysitting
me. But then she made a good point saying, I
leave it on. I know where I'm going. I leave
it on in case there's traffic and it can route
me around it. And I was like, yeah, warning head.
I was like, yeah, that doesn't make me feel like
a man. A man sits in traffic. Yeah. And we get
complaining and we yell. How do you think I get
that spittle on the inside of the windshield?
Yeah, I mean, what's interesting to me is that
there's so much pushback against the government
stepping in and saying we need to save a lot
of lives by putting this technology in cars when
the same people pushing back about on that are
routinely using. apps or other technology or
have technology already installed in their car
that is tracking them and essentially selling
their data to other corporate entities and surveilling
them. There's not a whole lot of outcry about
that from the same camp that pushes back on any
efforts by the government to save lives in the
same manner. Crazy. But I'm going to give Michael,
I'm going to give you the Segway Award of the
Week because you mentioned alcohol detection.
And that is our next story. We're going to talk
about how NHTSA is. This is a there's a report
from NHTSA itself. They got a little the report
to Congress, advanced impaired driving prevention
technology. I'm going to be honest, I tried getting
through it and my brain stumped. But thankfully,
there's an article from Road and Track titled,
Federal Regulators Tell Congress Advanced Impaired
Driving Detection Technology Isn't Ready Yet.
And I'm going to quote from this. Quoting, Currently,
detection technology around the legal limit continues
to have an error rate that would be unacceptably
high. While NHTSA has not made a final determination
about the necessary levels of accuracy, even
a 99 .9 % detection accuracy level could result
in millions, the tens of millions of instances
each year where the technology would incorrectly
prevent or limit drivers from operating their
vehicles. So that's an interesting takeaway because
I don't think they're necessarily wrong here.
And I'm not against, hold on, I know, this is
interesting. That's what I'm dying to hear your
feedback because this stuff has to, I think it
has to work incredibly, incredibly well. Because
because think of that ninety nine point nine
percent. That's if it hits people. No, no. I
want you to get to it. I'm dying to know. I want
to know where I'm wrong because I'm thinking
about it. You should know more just because we've
already discussed this topic a number of times.
I know, but I have brain damage. OK, each week
I want you. I want you to think six sigma. That's
the thing is ninety nine point nine is not enough.
No, that's not. That's actually inaccurate. And
that is where I'm falling on my gas. OK, well,
so before you jump in. So my my thought of reading
that ninety nine point nine. So maybe that is
the gaslight. Is that OK? So that I agree. OK,
take it away, Mr. So that's just positing ninety
nine point nine percent detection accuracy level
as though that is the state of technology. We
know directly from the mouth of Mr. Strasberger,
who runs the DADS program, that the DADS system
reached six sigma accuracy. So that is not 99
.9. That is 99 .99997, which is essentially three
detection failures per million. So NHTSA is basically
saying here, you know, there's 227 billion driving
trips that take place annually. Yeah, a 99 .9
% detection accuracy level is terrible, right?
It's going to result in, you know, like they
say, millions and tens of millions of instances
each year where the technology would incorrectly
prevent or limit drivers from operating their
vehicles. The NHTSA is working with dads. The
industry is working with dads and the dads folks
are saying we've met six Sigma criterion, right?
We are at 99 .9997. percent detection, which
dramatically reduces that number. You're not
talking about millions or tens of million instances
per year where the technology would incorrectly
prevent or limit drivers from operating their
vehicles. And this is not even taking into account
here the fact that you could use the technology
multiple times in one instance where one might
be a failure or you might detect alcohol in one
run of the system. The next one. to check it
might not, and the next one to check that might
not, and that driver could be free to drive.
So the way that the technology is implemented
is also important here. NHTSA is essentially
using a statistic that... It underrepresents
the success that the DADS system has displayed.
And NHTSA is saying, and I don't understand how
they can say this, and this is where the gaslight
really comes in. They say NHTSA is not aware
of any technology that claims to achieve anywhere
close to this level of accuracy in minimizing
false positives and false negatives. And no such
capabilities have been verified independently
to date. I could say that NHTSA probably has
an expended resources verifying independently
the claims that are being made by the dad's folks.
But the dad's folks made it very clear last fall
that they had achieved a six sigma level of accuracy,
which is far better than what NHTSA is citing
here. For that, I'm giving, you know, NHTSA the
gaslight of the week, because I think this is
pretty clearly a political kind of whitewash.
of the alcohol detection technology area to try
to pretend that the technology is not there yet
and we're just going to you know wash our hands
of this for another few years um and not and
not try to force this into vehicles which the
auto industry is clearly not being very cooperative
with. They haven't put these systems in e -cars
so that NHTSA can actually test them and produce
standards around them. And so NHTSA's hands are
tied a little bit there because the industry
is slow to adopt. But what NHTSA should be doing
instead of making false statements about the
level of accuracy of the current technology,
they should be doing a better job to verify the
claims made by the folks who are producing this
technology and getting this conversation making
this conversation a little broader and having
this conversation with manufacturers to push
this technology into vehicles and to start saving
lives on the road as soon as possible versus
kicking the can down the road to let some other
administration make that determination. Well,
there's another level of bullshit involved in
this argument. I'm reinforcing your gaslight,
but I'm still going to be the winner, Anthony,
just so you know. Fred is waving his fist at
me, threatening me to make sure he wins. There's
no reason why it's got to be all one way or the
other. For example, you could put dads in, and
dads are always right, by the way. So just based
on my experience. But anyway, you could put the
dads into a car today, and instead of completely
immobilizing the car as a transitional installation,
you could merely have the car start honking a
horn and blinking its lights when... it's detected
that there's any alcohol present. This would
be a great way of testing this whole false positive
hypothesis to see if, in fact, it's unbearable.
And it would give the police a chance to investigate
something that is a likely hazardous situation.
But there's no reason why it's got to be, you
know, we're going to jump off the cliff or not.
There are transitional approaches. That could
allow earlier implementation of the technology
without completely immobilizing the cars or taking
a chance on immobilizing a whole city, as the
alarmists would have you worry. So I think there's
no reason not to do it today. There's a way you
can manage the transition into the full capability.
And at the same time, it would help encourage
vehicle manufacturers to provide warning systems
that allow other motorists and other road users
to be alerted to and warned of hazardous behavior
by an approaching vehicle. That alone would save
a lot of lives. If you knew a drunk driver was
coming, you'd get the hell out of the way. No
reason why that couldn't be done today. I like
it. But Fred, your idea about having it flash
its lights and honk horns, that just becomes
a party bus all of a sudden. That's the things
people see that like, yeah, drunks over here.
Let's go party. Well, it might happen, but, you
know, there are police in the world, too. And
hopefully they could do a better job if they
had more information. So, Michael, the question
I have is how quickly. Well, first of all, to
refresh listeners minds, not my mind. What exactly
does dad stand for? I'm always going to have
to look this one up. Let's see. Never mind. I
can jump in. Alcohol detection system for safety.
Thank you. It's a mass spectrometer. So it samples
the environment either through touch or through
air and looks for the existence of alcohol in
the vicinity. Okay. So I'm going to ask a series
of dumb questions as the lightning round. How
quickly you're saying so false positive. So maybe
the first time I sit down, it gives me says alcohol
detected. Then it does a scan again. No alcohol,
no alcohol. Do we have any idea how quickly these
scans happen? They work very quickly because
they essentially have to, you know, consumers
aren't going to accept a delay of five, 10 seconds
getting into their cars and waiting for. this
technology to kick in. So it works incredibly
rapidly. Okay. And it has to. So I'm in the driver's
seat, sober as can be, person next to me drunk
as a skunk in the passenger seat. Is this going
to be a problem? It shouldn't be. And they've
tested that to make sure that it's, you know,
it's going to detect less than one second. It's
only going to detect the breath of the driver.
And in the future, they're actually trying to
produce a tissue spectros. was spectroscopy system,
which basically. You know, you put your finger
up to a light, an infrared light, and it's going
to take a number of readings in quickly. And,
you know, that would eliminate the potential
for a passenger's breath to interfere. Although,
you know, from what I've seen and from the, you
know, I think Fred and I have both been to, you
know, the auto show where we saw the dad's technology
demoed. And, you know, they've always been. Pretty
confident that the system is not going to confuse
readings from a passenger or, you know, rear
seat passengers or, you know, if you have a bus
full of drunks in the back, you know, this is
only going to detect the drivers, the driver's
alcohol level. Last question. So I sit down again,
stone sober, but I take out my hand sanitizer,
wipe down on my hands, contains a lot of alcohol.
Where am I at? I haven't read anything specific
on that, but I've got to assume that there are,
you know, first of all, if it's sniffing your
breath versus your hands, I'm assuming it's,
you know, I'm assuming that's been taken into
account, particularly post -COVID when hand sanitizer
really became a thing. Hey, people at Dad's,
let me know. Write in. Contact at autosafety
.org. And while you're there, you can click on
the red donate button. That's right. We will
take money from Dad's scan people. Right? Right?
Yeah. Autosafety .org. Click on Donate. This
section brought to you by Anheuser -Busch. If
you're going to drive drunk, drink Budweiser.
No, wait, no, don't ever. Don't do any of these
things. Okay. Fred, are you ready for your gaslight,
which you've threatened me that you've already
won? Oh, sure. I'm going back to my friends at
Waymo and New York Times. Boring. There's another
article this week in New York Times that talks
about people being trapped in cars. in way most
of various types and it illustrates uh really
the important fact that self -driving cars introduce
a whole new set of hazards to anybody who's using
them so the public perception is that humans
are bad computers are good all we need to do
is computerize everything and the world will
be wonderful but the fact is that they introduce
a whole new range of failure modes and hazards
that are simply not present in human -driven
cars. And this article is all about that. People
assaulting other cars or Waymos in San Francisco,
trapping people in them, defacing the cars. That's
only one of the many different kinds of hazards
uniquely associated with self -driving cars.
But inside it, the reporter... states, I'm quoting
here, Waymo frequently emphasizes its safety
compared with human drivers. This data has shown
a 90 % decrease in serious injury or worse crashes
for its cars compared with the average human
driver over the same distance in cities where
it operates. A different 2023 study showed that
self -driving cars were twice as likely as human
drivers to be involved in rear -end collisions,
which Waymo disputed with its own data. Close
quote. So what's interesting is we're starting
to see the urban myth of the safety of the Waymos
deteriorate through the reporter apparently doing
some homework, which is a good thing. But I also
want to go back to the fundamental, which is
that the studies quoted by Waymo or cited by
Waymo in its analysis that says 90 % of fewer
cars is actually wrong. It's faulty and it's
not what those studies say at all. So the studies
that this relies on are based on data from 2022.
What year is it now, Anthony? Oh man, I didn't
know there'd be a quiz. Don't ask Anthony. 2026.
I got it. Yeah. Yeah. So how many versions of
software has Waymo gone through since 2022? It's
an ever evolving thing. We don't have release.
No, we just, you know, we just go with the flow,
man. All right, so the data they collected, 2022,
was based on a very limited operating area. It
was based on cars that were restricted to low
speed. And it was based on software that is no
longer being used in the vehicle. So there's
no basis to believe the statement by Waymo that
it's 90 % less than the study basis. But even
going beyond that. The three studies I'm quoting
here from the studies, the first one says, accidents
involving advanced driving systems occur more
frequently than human -driven vehicle accidents
under dawn, dusk, or turning conditions, which
is 5 .25 and 1 .98 times higher than the humans,
respectively. That doesn't say it's 90 % less,
does it? It says it's five times more. The next
study says, The direction and significance of
comparisons in the any property damage or injury
outcome group are inconclusive due to difficulties
in estimating a matching human benchmark. So
that's the second study they cite. It basically
says we don't know how to draw conclusions based
on this. And then the third study they cite says
that differences between human and vehicles ranging
from 10 to 47 % higher in San Francisco. 12 to
20 % higher in Maricopa and 7 % lower to 34 %
higher in Los Angeles counties. This time of
day adjustment in San Francisco, limited to this
region due to data availability, resulted in
adjusted crash rates 2 % lower to 16 % higher
than adjusted and unadjusted rates, depending
on the severity level, close quote. So the third
study that they cite also doesn't say 90 % less.
It says probably higher, but we can't really
tell because there's such a wide range of variability
depending on how you look at the data. So Waymo,
out of whole cloth, made up a number that says
we're 90 % better and propagated that number
in their PR. By the way, nobody signed the report
that Waymo published on its website. So who knows
where it came from? That's a sign of quality.
Yeah, there must be engineers cringing somewhere.
And that was picked up, of course, without acknowledgement
by New York Times that went, bypassed all the
data, didn't bother to investigate the source.
But the good news is now New York Times seems
to be softening and is coming around to actually
reading some of the reports and at least reading
some comparative reports. Once again, I'm crediting
Waymo with the absolutely best PR in the world
and absolutely worst representation of the truth
in their data and giving, I guess, an assist
to New York Times for not bothering to actually
find out what the hell is going on when they
publish their data. So there you go. There's
my gaslight this week. Pretty good. Pretty good.
I mean, it's your, you know, You're like a dog
with a bone here, though. One week, I want to
see you move on and try something different.
Mainly because I want to take this. This is so
good. I meet way more people from time to time.
I just love being me. Do you give them hugs?
Hugs are few and far between, I guess. But they're
friendly people for the most part. I'm sure they're
lovely people. So that's your gaslight. I have
a tough one choosing this week. Surprisingly,
so many. And I think, I mean, there's some obvious
ones related to Tesla. There's some obvious one
related to Morrison at NHTSA. But I think I'm
going to go off book, gentlemen. I'm going to
go to Donut. That's right. Donut Labs. Yeah,
Donut Batteries. I just decided right now to
do this. You have an update? I did. And this
is off book. So they started testing their recharging
rate on their batteries. publicly doing these
public tests, which is great. They said, we're
doing this stuff. But I don't know if you guys
remember here, back in the day when they announced
this, they said, it's going to charge so fast,
we're going to slow it down. Our charge, because
we charge so quickly. It turns out they can reach
a charge of 50 % in about five minutes, which
is not them slowing it down. Cause they were
saying we're getting a hundred percent in five
minutes as something like that. Don't quote me
on this. So, so if they're getting five minutes
now to 50%, they're halfway there. They, they,
they did slow down. You're right. There you go.
So where's your gas light now? I, you know, I,
I, it's still clearly not winning. It's still,
I never claimed to win this week. I mean, fine.
I'll just jump to my backup. Then my backup being.
Tesla. Oh, wait, you're changing the goalposts.
Yeah, but I'm the judge and jury. No, you're
not. So it's March 18th right now. Donut says
this battery, which we all, I think all of us
hope, is a magical unicorn that comes to market.
They've got two weeks left to deliver it according
to their timeline. They're testing it. They're
saying we're testing an older version of the
battery. We're charging. They're basically trying
to say that, oh, it's a battery, not a super
capacitor. Because I guess some skeptics are
like, yeah, they make a battery. They made a
super capacitor. In my very limited understanding
of electrical engineering, a capacitor is essentially
a battery. But I guess the way they can hold
charge is different. Capacitor is just temporary.
Battery is more long -term storage. And I'm looking
towards Mr. Perkins to see how off I am on this.
I don't know. I haven't studied the chemistry.
I don't know how they work. But like a capacitor
versus a battery, that's roughly right? Oh, capacitor,
well, it depends on the size of the battery and
the size of the capacitor. But in general, capacitors
are way faster. Right. Okay. So that's it. And
I think, I mean, I'm giving the win this week
to Michael because we went in depth there on
dads. And, you know, Fred, I love the Waymo Crusade.
Big fan of it because they need to be called
out. And I think, you know, you've made a little
dent in that, that the New York times, you know,
they sent an intern to do a little bit of research
and they, they pushed back a little bit by saying,
and, and Waymo says in their own studies or in
the past, they would just be like, according
to studies. Yeah. I never cited that it was Waymo
doing their own work. Well, you know, you've
got to give credit to somebody who steers. A
very large, uncooperative ship. Right. I mean,
you know, there's a handicap associated with
telling the New York Times that they're full
of, shall we say, water? No, you definitely don't
win. That metaphor was too lame. Michael, you're
the winner. I want to go back to that article,
too, because not on the gaslight side of things,
but on the... Kind of the what is Waymo supposed
to do about this problem kind of thing, right?
You have, you know, we've talked about this before,
where folks essentially walk out in front of
a driverless car, whether they're harassing women
or harassing riders. You know, there's all sorts
of different reasons why it's happening. But
ultimately, the behavior that's causing these
incidents is criminal. in nature right um if
you're driving your own vehicle you know you
have the option of doing exactly what the waymo
vehicles are doing here stopping locking your
doors i mean you could take even you know riskier
action by driving and potentially colliding with
one of the people who is doing this harassment
that's a that's a That's an action that I don't
think Waymo is ever going to be willing to take
to risk human life with their robo taxi is what
would pose a lot of problems for them. You know,
what do you what do we want Waymo vehicles to
be doing in this situation? You know, they're
not going to be able to deploy cruise missiles
or pepper spray or, you know. What is an autonomous
vehicle supposed to do in this situation to protect
its passengers? There's a quote at the end of
the article that says, as passengers, we deserve
more safety than essentially what's being provided.
If someone is trying to attack us, there can't
be a policy to just leave us there trapped. But,
I mean, I don't know what the solution is there.
Well, the solution is to not operate until you
can guarantee safety. But how is an autonomous
vehicle company ever going to be able to guarantee
that some crackpot doesn't step off the curb
in front of the car and harass the passengers?
Not my problem. Yeah, I just don't see a way
of that ever. Just like a human driving a car
will never be able to control whether or not
that happens. Well, they've had to create this
imaginary perception of safety anyway to get
any customers to use it. So, you know, this is...
This is really no different, in my opinion. It's
just another hazard that's associated with the
autonomous operation of vehicles that they have
not managed in any meaningful way. If they can
continue to get people to use the vehicle while
signing away their rights to compensation and
legal redress, good for them, I guess. Good for
their stockholders, but it's not... Not something
I want to participate in and not something I
would endorse. You know, there's nothing inevitable
about operation of unsafe autonomous vehicles
on public roads. Yeah, but see, even if, say,
we live in a fantasy world, right, where Waymo
vehicles are 100 % safe, they're never having
a crash, they aren't. Obviously, that's a pretend
world, but that still doesn't resolve this issue.
of a human being stepping out in front of this
autonomous vehicle, which is 100 % of the time
going to stop. You know, we also in this fantasy
world where they're perfect, right? I think we're
somewhat blame shifting here when we put the
blame on Waymo for locking the door and sitting
there when there is, you know, a criminal action
taking place outside of the vehicle that there's
really little Waymo could do to prevent. So I
don't know. I feel like there's a fundamental
problem in in this situation that I don't know
if there is a good answer to other than addressing
the actual criminal activity that's going on.
I think it's looking at why it actually happens.
It's because the passengers are helpless. Like
I've never when I've been in a vehicle driving
it and you get people in the street harassing
you, I can respond. I mean, that's the thing
is I can respond by by making physical gestures,
by verbal gestures, by what does that do? No,
no. But the thing is, no, but they it ends quickly
like you can do that. And people, you know, you
basically honk the horn. You can honk the horn
and show that, hey, I'm going to move this vehicle.
And, you know, crazy person gets out of your
way. I think the the problem with the Waymo is
that there's no one there except for somebody
in a call center in the Philippines. who can
can do anything like it's not it's that's that's
the thing and maybe that's the attraction to
people who have sociopathic tendencies to be
like i'm gonna harass this vehicle because of
something i i i think it's finding what's that
root cause that people do this like why why would
you why would you do that i don't know well there's
a lot of i mean there could be any number of
reasons there could be mental health reasons
they could be just you know this this person's
Off their rocker, they're on drugs. I mean, there
could be a dozen different reasons why it happens.
It's just that I don't think there is really
a good mechanism for Waymo to determine how it
should respond here. Do you want the robo -taxis
to start honking and moving forward slowly, potentially
risking a collision with this person that's harassing
the vehicle or group of people that's harassing
the vehicle? That's a tough question there. I
mean, I wish, I don't think we have the answers
for that yet. And I don't know that, you know,
we have the capabilities to address the criminal
behavior behind it fully. I think we can expect
this to continue happening. And so far, you know,
from all the cases we've seen, right, there haven't
been any situations where the vehicle has been
breached and the passengers have been injured.
As far as I know, that certainly remains a possibility.
But even in that circumstance, you know, you
could see the same thing happen, you know, to
a car that's not self -driving. So I don't know
what the answer is or if this is even really
a truly a large as, you know, an issue that can
be addressed. The psychological thing is that
you're exterior to the vehicle and you realize
I'm in control of the vehicle, not the person
inside because I can stop the sensors. It's a,
yeah, but I, Michael, you're right. I don't,
I don't know. And maybe it's something over time
where these things become more ubiquitous that
people just start to ignore them. I don't, I
think it's likely you're on the opposite direction
because the people who are inclined to do this
are finding that it's consequence free and it's
great fun. You know, they're just going to, in
my opinion, likely to keep on doing it. In fact,
even doing it worse. I mean, look at all these
stupid TikTok challenges that propagate, right?
This is a natural TikTok challenge to propagate
around the world if the Waymos go around the
world. And, you know, kids especially do stupid
things. That's how kids are defined, I think.
That was a great Bill Cosby show. I think you've
put your finger on it, Michael. What the hell
can you really do? If you pass severe laws, you're
going to tie up the cops and the courts. And
the courts are already being, at least the federal
courts, being inundated by immigration problems
right now. And the backlogs run to years and
years and years with all of this deportation
that's going on. you're not going to solve this
problem by further burdening the courts and restricting
their authority. I don't know. Another good reason
to avoid Waymo, I think. Well, okay, let's move.
We did a pretty good deep dive on this. Let's
move on to another autonomous vehicle company
or two companies. Let's talk autonomous trucks.
Yes, we've talked about this before, but there's
more and more of these coming on the road. I
think only in Texas, it looks like. And it's
really just seems to be the Dallas to Houston
run on the I -45. And you've got Aurora Innovation
and the other one being Kodiak of really pushing
this stuff out there. And they're making kind
of the same arguments that Waymo makes saying,
hey, this is safer. Everything's great. We can
drive. One of their arguments say, hey, we can
do a thousand mile run. You can't do that with
a human. Why can't you do that with a human?
Because people need brakes. I wasn't aware that
18 wheelers could actually have enough fuel to
do a thousand mile run without refueling. How
far can they go? I mean, I figured they got to
pull. That's one of the things I think we've
brought up in the context of Tesla's electric
semi is that it has compared to your average
diesel vehicle. It has a very limited range.
And it's carrying potato chips. It has a much
more limited range than a diesel. And it has.
much more weight in its powertrain than the diesel
so that's kind of some of the concerns about
its ability to scale so this is an article from
the new york times titled driverless big rigs
are coming to american highways and soon so the
takeaway well my takeaway from the article is
it talks about they still have an issue with
phantom braking and this is where a big rig just
like we've seen in passenger vehicles even before
avs where they'll just The brakes just apply
automatically. Now, if in your family sedan or
SUV, the issue is dangerous, but a lot less dangerous
than if you're calling, you know, calling a big
rig because that phantom braking event is much
more dramatic because of something called physics.
Now, I don't know if you believe in physics or
not or momentum or things of that nature, but
if you do, I think you can see that this is a
lot more dangerous. Trucking companies are trying
to say, well, we have LIDAR as well, and that
will reduce. Thankfully, they're not being dishonest.
They're not pulling some PR thing saying, yeah,
it won't eliminate phantom braking, but it will
greatly reduce. And they're probably right on
this, but there's still no way to solve this
problem with these autonomous trucks. So two
questions, gentlemen. Actually, one question.
Is this? Are these actually moving? Are there
other states besides this one corridor in Texas
that is ready to start deploying these things?
Well, I've read they're driving to Phoenix. Oh.
So if that's true, then they'd be going through
New Mexico and Arizona. But I can't come up with
a corroborating study. We expected the driverless
semis to move. and and to be successful a little
quicker than the autonomous vehicles that are
operating in cities because driverless trucks
were essentially being seen as something that's
going to operate on interstates not inter inside
of cities you know they were talking about it
as a way to move products from you know point
a to point b essentially in kind of a moving
it from to zones outside of cities. And then
the final delivery would take place with the
human driver so that these autonomous vehicles
were essentially operating in what is ultimately
one of the safest per mile environments for driving
in America, which is on interstate highways or
on divided highways. So, you know, I'm not surprised
to see this. this industry continue to grow and
to add rides. However, they still have a long
way to go. We haven't seen them operate. We're
not sure how well they operate in bad weather
conditions, how they might be able to scale to
other areas of the country. There's certainly
a lot of concerns around this technology because
when something does go wrong, as pointed out
by Missy Cummings in the article, You're talking
about a lot more weight and bigger sizes and
weights that are going to put the surrounding
vehicles at greater danger. So that's where we
are. They're certainly expanding in Texas, and
Aurora appears to be set to expand dramatically
in the next year. We know they started doing
some rides without safety drivers last year,
I think it was, and then quickly stopped that
because the manufacturer of their trucks. Packer
disagreed with their approach. We're assuming
that was for liability reasons, even though I
don't believe Packer was willing to comment on
that situation for this article. Yeah. And from
the article, it's talking about they're doing
a one of these companies doing a run of refrigerated
goods from Dallas to Phoenix or Fort Worth to
Phoenix, somewhere, Texas to Arizona. And you're
right, Fred. None of these articles have still
touched on that last mile problem. They just
kind of say, hey, at this small part, a human
driver is going to get involved. Maybe this just
might be too in the weeds, but I still don't
understand how that handover happens. Are these
things pulling on the side of the freeway and
there's a guy there? They're like pulling into
stations essentially outside of major cities.
So they make the bulk of the distance traveled
is on the interstate, but it's simply the, you
know. The last few miles into and out of cities
where you would see the human drivers operate
them. Now, is that true or is that just the logical
assumption you're making? I believe I mean, I
don't know. We could check a Kodiak and Aurora's
operations, but I believe that's how they their
business model was initially proposed. Because
that's always the thing that seems to be they
just no one really talks about that. And that's
always the question I've had and been too lazy
to say. I mean, and they say, you know, we're
operating on, you know, they say they're operating
on. this interstate and it doesn't have any allusion
to operating, you know, inside the city and actually
making the delivery, the final delivery. Well,
I'm sure they will in time. Yeah, I think in
time, that's something that they're certainly
going to consider. I just don't know that they're
quite ready to take on the challenge of urban
driving with a semi, which I think we all know
is not easy at all. I think one of the things
that's not being discussed at all is the proclivity
or, I'm not going to, it's not the right word,
but the likelihood of criminal behavior. The
hijacking trucks is fairly common, I guess, and
perhaps it used to be more common. But like these
people in San Francisco with the Waymos, all
you need to do to stop one of these vehicles
is stop in front of it. So, you know, you're
in the middle of nowhere. A car pulls up in front
of you and slows down gradually. The truck slows
down gradually. If you're a criminal, this is
a best case situation. You don't even have to
confront the human being. You detest the load
and go on your way. And, you know, they can switch
loads in just a couple of minutes. And I don't
know how they're going to solve that problem
at all. Seems like a real option for... Criminal
behavior. Now, Fred, on this podcast, you've
admitted numerous times to a number of crimes
you've committed. Is this foreshadowing for a
future career? Let me consult my attorney on
that. Okay. I don't know why they just don't
have the driver just sleep in the cab during
these things and they can just wake up. Then
you always have a human there. Anyway, it doesn't
matter. Related to this, before we jump into
the Tau, is an article from IIHS. And this is
something I didn't know. This one is titled,
Let's Prioritize Safety in the Vehicles that
Power Our Economy. And I'm going to quote from
it. Many government safety standards that apply
to passenger vehicles don't apply to commercial
vehicles, which means they often lack basic features
like airbags. There are also no requirements
for automatic emergency braking or other advanced
driver assistance systems. These systems are
particularly important when you consider that
most people who die in truck crashes are other
road users. Now, I imagine Kodak and Aurora,
they have, you know, since it's a full ADS system,
it's automated, they have AEB and things like
that built into it. But you're telling me my,
when I'm going down the highway and there's some
large Peterbilt next to me, they don't have requirements
for airbags for the safety of their own drivers?
They don't have... automatic emergency braking
required like automatic emergency braking would
be the one that i mean i'd want because i'm one
of the few road users that knows when do you
cross in front of an 18 -wheeler i want to see
the entire front end of it in my rearview mirror
because everyone else just tries to jump right
in front of it and give these poor guys heart
attacks and cows yeah you know nips uh did the
automatic emergency braking rule um and completed
it um gosh almost two years ago at this point,
and it's still being held up. But it only applies
to passenger vehicles, which are, you know, essentially
vehicles, you know, a simplified way of explaining
it, vehicles up to 10 ,000 pounds. That's going
to be cars and light truck categories. But that
doesn't touch, you know, a lot of like the heavy
duty pickups that weigh more than 10 ,000 pounds,
a lot of the delivery vans, you know, anything
larger that doesn't. doesn't qualify as a passenger
vehicle that the aeb rules that nizza um enacted
during 2024 and which we're still waiting on
don't apply to those vehicles the um that that
issue was supposed to be taken up by i believe
the federal highway administration or the um
where There's a separate rulemaking that was
ongoing that didn't come out related to heavy
truck automatic emergency braking. So that's
something we're still waiting on in that area.
And even then, you know, it was a lift just to
get them to consider expanding AB, not only to
the trucks, but also to the all sorts of delivery
vehicles and vans and, you know, everything operating
in our neighborhoods. Getting pedestrian automatic
emergency braking on those and regular automatic
emergency braking on those vehicles is. going
to be critical to ultimately preventing a lot
of the deaths and injuries on our road that occur
in rear collisions and in that type of situation.
So that's kind of the state of play right now.
There are no requirements there for AEB. Luckily,
you know, a lot of the large diesel manufacturers,
I think, are incorporating automatic emergency
braking into their trucks. However, you know,
without minimum safety standards to ensure consistent
and effective operation there. So it's difficult
to know just how how well those operations are
going. I always feel concerned when I see a FedEx
or UPS truck because the inside for the driver
just looks like a death trap. Like those side
doors being open. I mean, thankfully, I see them
wearing seatbelts, but I didn't know they might
not have an airbag. And with that, it is time
for the Tao of Perkins. Look at that. I switched
it up a little bit. Good morning, gentlepersons.
So, there's an article in Atlantic this week,
the title of which is, Why Tesla Was Driving
Itself Perfectly Until It Crashed. Now, for those
who are not familiar with Tesla, they are using
artificial intelligence to drive the car, except
when it's in a critical condition, then they
switch it off so that you, the driver, are legally
responsible for whatever happens. Now, this article
is written by Sean Dong, and it says here, quoting,
I used to run the self -driving car division
at Uber, trying to build a future in which technology
protects us from accidents. Close quote. Noble
ambition. Just a quick correction. The article
is from Rafi Krikorian. Sean Dong illustrated
it. Thank you. Pardon. I was reading the wrong
line. Yeah. Thank you for that, Michael. So,
it's a longish article, and of course, can't
read the whole thing here, but I'll get a few
of the high points here. Quoting again, my car
is full self -driving mode. I remember that was
a Tesla. Logged flawless miles for three years,
but when the accident happened, it was my name
on the insurance report. Close quote. So, what...
Tesla did is automatically drove him into his
own personally responsible disaster, nearly killing
himself and his children as they ran into a wall
during a turn that they had apparently navigated
many times before. And he says, for now, the
legal principle is simple. You're responsible.
Well, that's okay if you're in a position where
you can be responsible. He goes on to say, Tesla's
description of self -driving on his website warns,
do not become complacent. And I didn't think
I was. But it's impossible, basically, to be
a fully vigilant person and also monitor a nearly
autonomous system. He goes on to say, monitoring
a nearly perfect system is boring. Boredom leads
to mind -wandering. Drivers need five to eight
seconds to mentally re -engage after an automated
driving system gives control back. But emergencies
can unfold much faster than that. The driver's
physical reaction might be instantaneous, driving
the wheel, hitting the brake. But the mental
part? Rebuilding context, recognizing what's
wrong, deciding what to do. That takes time your
brain doesn't have. So the point here is... With
an automatic system that's almost perfect, you're
going to get bored to tears. And he says, you
know, in his experience, AI is inherently hazardous.
Quoting again, cars train us mile by mile. AI
trains us week by week. In week one, you read
a chatbot's output carefully. By week three,
you're copying and pasting without reading. Well,
the same thing is, close quote, same thing is
true for the cars, right? Start off slowly. You're
very vigilant. You are suspicious of the car's
behavior when it's under AI. Soon you relax.
And soon you relax beyond the limits of where
you should relax. Our airplane systems with automatic
controls have built in tests and tasks that they
give to the pilots to make sure that they remain
engaged. There's nothing like that built into
the AI that's... governing cars right now, particularly
not the Teslas. The Waymo cars are designed to
not be driven by a human being, so they don't
presume that there's any human being who's going
to take over. In some situations, a human being
needs to take over, such as we talked about earlier.
But for the Tesla and things that are called
the SAE Level 2 cars, if they're relying upon...
Nearly perfect, but still imperfect AI systems.
You are in a world of hurt because you will get
used to the system. You will come over there
and let down them. Your attention will wander
and you're going to end up in a bad place more
than likely. So I encourage people to read this
article. It's in the current, I guess, the current
version of Atlantic, Michael. Yeah, that's April.
And we'll have the reference on our website.
But the AI, embedded AI, as Phil Coleman would
tell you and has written a book about it, is
inherently hazardous simply because it's a human
characteristic. If you do not pay attention to
something, you feel you don't have to pay attention
to. And that's exactly what AI is all about.
But it's imperfect. And when you buy AI, you
assume it's going to be perfect because that's
why you bought it, right? Doing something for
you. But there are some real hidden problems
in there. Again, there are a lot of inherent
problems in any vehicle that is being driven
by a computer that don't exist for human -driven
vehicles. And these are not cataloged very well.
They're not thought about much, certainly by
our current regulators. But you as a consumer
really need to pay attention to this because
it has life and death consequences. That's it
for today. Yeah. And I'll add to that because
I don't know if Fred mentioned this, but maybe
I missed it. The writer of that article used
to be the head of the self -driving operations
at Uber. So it's not like they just fell off
the turnip truck and hopped into a Tesla. They're
not like just some neuroscientist or neurosurgeon
who just like, I've got an opinion about this
stuff. My favorite line from this article, because
this is a really good article, is basically just
summing up what Fred just said. Psychologists
call this the vigilance decrement. Or monitoring
a system, a nearly perfect system, is boring.
It's great. I love it. I think we could all understand
how that happens. Yeah, I'm talking to you, Chernobyl.
Anyway, with that, let's jump into some recalls.
First up, Toyota. Whoa, big recall. 550 ,007
vehicles. The 2021 to 2024 Highlander Hybrid.
The same thing without hybrid. The subject vehicles
are equipped with second row seats that use a
criner. Back seats, they're going to unlock and
the back angle adjustment and won't come into
place and force balance some of the spring. The
back seats are just. installed incorrectly and
they're going to cause more injury in a crash
how's that there you go that's a really short
way of putting it yeah i mean i think this is
the one where um this is the one where the seat
backs didn't lock properly exactly the locking
spring and return spring the door and design
yeah and as we've talked about many times here
you know having instability or a failed lock
or any kind of problem on your seat in a crash
is Very, very bad thing to have since a lot of
the safety that's provided to your body in a
crash is designed starting with the seat. So
it's incredibly important that seats be, you
know, be in the position they're expected to
be in a crash and not in an unlocked position.
Next up, Kia 14 ,870 vehicles, the 2027 Telluride
2026 K4. This is an improperly manufactured rear
center seatbelt anchor buckle. There's difficulty
buckling the seatbelt anchor buckle. I assume
that's just clicking in the seatbelt into the
receptacle, right? I think it may be also in
these situations we see people who think that
the vehicle is buckled and it turns out that
it's not. Oh, they don't hear the click? Yeah,
there's a couple things that could be going on
here. It's not, you know, it's... It says it
may not latch properly, which kind of implies
that the passenger or driver thinks they've latched
the seatbelt buckle properly, but it is actually
not latched. And then a collision, it comes free
and does not protect the occupant. Oh, no. Last
one, Volkswagen 48 ,165 vehicles, the 2025 or
2026 Volkswagen Jetta. The transmission ground
wire may not have been connected during production.
If the ground wire is not connected, there'll
be an open electrical circuit. It makes me remember
as a child, we like had to test nine volt batteries.
It's still good. You'd lick it. Yeah, you put
it on your tongue and you felt that little buzz.
That was good. That is an uncomfortable feeling.
However, not nearly as uncomfortable as having
your vehicle catch on fire because of the fact
that they didn't ground the transmission's electrical
system. It looks like they're going to be fixing
this in early May, so owners can look out for
that. Okay, and with that, we'd like to give
a big round of applause to Ford for not making
it into the recalls this week. Good job, Ford.
Hey, I also want to mention for anybody who thinks
I may have some particular competence that for
a short time, while I was in college, they were
selling 100 -volt DC batteries that you could
put into a lantern. And I'd done the 9 -volt
trick. So I thought, gee, I wonder what would
happen with the 100 -volt battery. But I'm smart,
right? So I didn't use my tongue. Mainly because
the terminal's too far apart. But I have big
hands, and so I could lick my finger and my thumb
and short out the battery terminals to see if
it really was 100 volts. It was. It was a memorable
moment. Anyhow. That is stupid. Yeah, yeah. Like
I said, you know. I just wanted to calibrate
people's understanding of my intellectual capability
here. Did your fingernails melt off or blacken?
No. How much acid were you on? Very, very, very
beef shock. But actually, Thomas Edison got into
a ruckus with Tesla in Washington House way back
when because he was a... advocate for dc power
right and he thought ac power would kill everybody
um so it was very difficult to kill somebody
using dc you can give me a hell of a shock but
difficult to kill somebody so i experimentally
verified that but uh Yeah, you see, I digress.
Thank you for listening, folks. Until next week,
and you can tune into Fred's other podcast, Felonies
and Fire Story. I don't know. Yeah, human crash
test dummy, Fred Perkins. Thanks, listeners.
We'll be back next week. Thanks, everyone. Bye.
For more information, visit www .autosafety .org.