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, April 8th, and we're here to bring
you the wonderful world of auto safety. And the
wonderful parts and the nonsense parts. But I'm
going to start off with a gaslight part. That's
right. Jumping right in. I got to tell you, listeners,
gaslight coming over the nominee each week is
incredibly hard. It is. I don't like this part
of the show. Really? Really? Yeah. Sometimes
it's not. I tend to fly on the side of there's
so much, you know, bullshit that's echoed around
in the world of tech and auto is that it's easy
to find somebody gaslighting the public. Yeah.
But I'm like, OK, it's Waymo. It's Elon. It's
ARK Investments. It's just I don't know. So this
I broke out of my shell a little bit on this
one. So I'm going to start off with an article
that I think I only just sent around to you guys
this morning. from the Washington Post titled,
DC speed cameras are catching super violators.
Most have Virginia and Maryland tags. And the
article talks about how there's basically people
speeding like well over 100 miles per hour throughout
DC, but they have a Maryland or a Virginia plate.
And so these speed cameras catch them, but because
of laws, the DC government can't actually go
after these people. There's no way to. Catch
them or find them. They send out fines, but the
people are just like, I learned an amazing thing
in this that apparently one way that I'm going
to quote paraphrase in the article. One way drivers
evade responsibility for camera tickets was by
getting tags from Virginia, which allows non
-residents to register vehicles there. About
14 ,000 D .C. residents have Virginia tags. That's
mind blowing to me. Like what? I mean, freedom,
I guess. But that's not my gaslight. My gaslight
is they go after some of these people with these
massive amounts of speeding tickets. There's
a woman, Kylie Ann Sullivan of Fredericksburg,
Virginia. She's failed to pay one hundred ninety
seven citations. She was caught going one hundred
and fifty one miles per hour. Oh, my God. Yeah.
Onto South Capitol Street. So quoting from this
like a 30 mile an hour zone. I mean, I can't
imagine how you could go that fast. Whatever.
So, quoting, she said in a letter to the court
that her ex -boyfriend was the one behind the
wheel for more than 98 % of these offenses and
that she has not driven since he totaled the
SUV three months after the high -speed drive.
I would also like to stress that no one was ever
injured or harmed as a result of any of these
incidents, she added. Her case is pending. That
is my gaslight, is this woman here being like,
hey, it wasn't me. I wasn't the one driving.
It wasn't my bag of drugs. I was just holding
it for somebody else. And no one was injured
because at 151 miles per hour, I couldn't see
them if I did injure them. I don't know how you
can do that. That street doesn't have long enough
straightaway stretch to do that. That's what
I was really wondering. How does someone get
up to 150 miles an hour in D .C.? In a Honda.
It's like, what? Yeah. So there is somebody else
in the article that make the. the similar claim
of like, it wasn't me driving. It wasn't, wasn't
me. It was just, I share the car with other people.
And this woman, that's the number one excuse.
That's the number one excuse, right? For camera
tickets. Because, I mean, I guess the claim is
they can't place you in the car, but they can
place your car. And so, you know. Why not blame
someone else? It reminds me of a friend when
she got out of law school. She was doing legal
aid work and she said it was down in Atlanta,
I think. And she said half the time she'd get
these people in and they'd be like, look, it
wasn't my bag of drugs. And she's like, all right,
we're going to get rid of that argument because
that's not going to hold up. No, I was just holding
it for somebody else. Like, look, your life is
not the inside of a Stevie Wonder song. OK, let
it go. So that's my nominee for Gaslight of the
Week. It is. uh everyone in virginia everyone
in dc who has a virginia plate and specifically
this uh woman kylie and sullivan i believe is
what it was yes that's my that's how i'm starting
off that's pretty good it sounds like it's kind
of a local interest story though anthony you're
usually a much more of a globalist kathy woods
said some bullshit too what else do you want
from me All right, so let me show you my gaslight
this week, which Michael was going to get to
anyway. But it was Senator Markey asked all of
the AV manufacturers for some information about
how they operate and what they do and response
time in the event of a fault and all that sort
of stuff. And so all of the companies sent a
response back to Markey. basically highlighting
their latency. And there's a misunderstanding
that latency means the amount of time between
the AV encountering a problem and the response
to that problem. So how many companies were there,
Michael? Six companies? Seven. Seven companies?
Well, six if you're not counting Tesla, but we
have to count Tesla. Sure, why not? Only one
of them answered correctly. The latency is only
a small part of the actual response time. The
actual response time includes the latency, which
is the time between issuance of a digital signal
on the Internet and receipt of that digital signal
by the appropriate target. The actual response
time includes latency in both directions, plus
the amount of time it takes for the human being
to attend to the message. Many of these people
have a tiered system in which the message comes
in from the AV. A human looks at it and says,
oh, this has to go to group X or group Y. And
then group X or group Y assigns that issue or
that ticket, if you will, to one of the human
beings in there who then figures out what to
do, sends it back. And then you've got the latency
between the... transmission and the receipt.
So this all takes a fair amount of time, but
only one company identified to Senator Markey's
office that latency is in fact only a small part
of that round trip message return. So that's
my, my gaslight this week is that six of the
seven took advantage of the lack of sophistication
of the person who wrote the request for information
and misled the senator about how long it takes
for the AV to respond to some problem that gets
identified by the AV and then actually take action
in accordance with that. And I got to give credit
to my friends at Waymo who actually went out
of their way to explain to the senator and their
response. That, in fact, latency is only one
small part of the overall issue. All of the other
issues are associated, all the other delays are
associated with the human factors of sorting
the command, getting it to the right person,
figuring out the answer, and then getting it
back and answering that it takes several seconds
at a minimum for the AV to respond to whatever
the issue was. So my plot, it goes to my friends
at Waymo and the Bullshit Award. Or Gaslight?
Bullshit. Which Gaslight award? Goes to the other
six manufacturers. Aurora was one of them. Tesla,
Zooks. Who else, Michael? May Mobility, Nero.
Did you say Motional? No. No, I did not say Motional.
So congratulations to all of those other companies.
You've done a great job of Gaslighting the Senator.
Well done. Yeah, I'd say that all of them, yeah,
all of them gaslighted in one way, since every
single company refused to disclose how frequently
these remote operators are intervening, which
tells us a lot, right? I mean, knowing how often
a remote operator has to intervene in a vehicle's
operation really tells us how autonomous those
vehicles truly are, right? Right. Well, also,
as Phil Koopman pointed out, why do they have
to intervene at all? vehicle is solely responsible
for the safe operation why is there a human in
the loop at all now what the senator should have
asked for is how much does how much time does
it take for an av to respond when there is a
human in the loop to form part of the driving
command response right maybe next time yeah even
just simpler just yeah how long does the actual
response take And it's going to be a whole lot
more than the numbers there. They're focused
on the report, which are, you know, like in milliseconds.
Right. Michael, before we jump on your gas, can
we I want to stay with this because. Yeah. So
Marky, his I want to quote from his press release
on this says my investigation revealed a wide
range of concerning practices from employees
assisting vehicles from overseas to wide variations
and communication lag times between vehicles
and human operators. These operations demand
urgent federal regulation. I'm calling on NHTSA
to investigate. And I'm working on legislation
to impose strict guardrails on AV companies used
to remote operators. Okay, so forgetting the
side of that, doing this is needed, but in the
current environment, this is probably a massive
long shot. I broke myself. There was a question
in there. Is that coffee shortage still striking
in New York City? I've been having to wake up
too early lately. It's really set off my circadian.
I'm assuming you're going to ask what can be
done here at the federal level to address the
problem. Even more of that is like, what are
the actual steps here for Markey? Yeah, he's
going to call for this data. As Fred just pointed
out, at least six out of seven dentists are going
to lie to him. Or not lie, but obfuscate. And
not really get to the truth here. This seems
like a fairly simple thing again. And I want
to continue from Mark. He says autonomous vehicle
companies have long boasted they can eliminate
road fatalities caused by human error. But the
fact is they're not being honest about how much
humans are actually involved in this. So you're
not eliminating human error. You're just shifting
it from the driver's seat to a call center in
the Philippines. Yeah. And then trying to make
that remote operator non -responsible for outcomes,
too. Let's not forget that they're hoping to
shield themselves from liability if there are
mistakes made. Right. So, yeah, that's the thing.
So there's wouldn't that be the simpler thing
is is forgetting all of that and just focus on
enforcing or assigning a liability to this? Because
we know on the state level that these cars are
exempt. They can murder at will and no one will
get caught. He's working on this on the federal
level campaign. I guess as far as political expediency
goes, right, it's probably going to be much more
difficult to get a bill through that assigns
liability to certain parties under certain conditions
than it is to maybe get a bill through that makes
the industry have to be a little more transparent
about their remote operations. I mean, why? Why?
Because. I mean, the liability is in one there.
They're giving up information and scenario two.
They're giving up money. Right. I get that. But
it's you know, it's not, you know, assigning
liability under certain conditions. It's it doesn't
matter what the conditions are when I'm driving
my car. I'm always liable for any accident. If
it's, if, if there's fault attributed to you,
right. So there has to be some type of a fault
there. You can't just be driving down the road
and then you get T -boned by a dump truck and
you're somehow at fault for that. Right. Well,
I think in New York state, there's no fault.
So that's an insurance thing. Oh, but, but you
know, you know what I'm saying? So is, is if
I'm yeah. That, I don't know. I just, I'm upset
about this whole. Just stop. I'm upset about
the liability aspect. That's it. That's my story.
Anthony, you're muttering. I know. And another
thing that came into play in the findings of
the report was that every company, this could
have been another gaslight for you guys, every
company claimed its autonomous driving systems
would ignore dangerous advice from... remote
operators. How? I mean, literally, how do you
program an autonomous vehicle to parse through
the advice coming from its human remote operator
and decide whether or not to ignore that advice?
That sounds just like an absolute lie, right?
And every company claimed that. It's science
fiction. Can these vehicles really do that? Because
if they can do that, then why do they need REOs
in the first place? It's called magic. Yeah,
it just, that sounds super sketchy. All accidents
are edge cases. And so a human operator telling
them to do something dangerous would be an edge
case. As we've learned, you can't program around
every possible edge case. And we know that's
not true because we saw what happened with the
Waymo and the school bus in that one instance
that the NTSB looked at where the operator or
the remote operator said, oh, no, that school
bus is not dropping off passengers. You can go
ahead and pass it. And the Waymo did, right?
Yeah, well, I think it's even worse, actually,
because all the AV operators are saying they've
now gone to end -to -end AI, right? So in order
for any input to affect the end -to -end AI,
it's got to have happened many, many times and
have been absorbed and processed through the
genetic algorithms, genetic learning algorithms,
I guess they're called, in the large language
models. So how the hell does that work? You'd
have to have a rule -based overlay for the end
-to -end AI in order for an individual input
from... a remote source to have any impact whatsoever.
So they're either not using end -to -end AI or
they're not able to absorb any information from
a remote human user. So what the hell? There's
a real disjoint here. The human -in -a -loop
factor is completely inconsistent with end -to
-end AI governing the vehicle motion. I must
be missing something because... This makes no
sense to me at all. You just need more stock
options to help you understand the cognitive
dissonance. Well, that's true. That's always
possible. And I'm open to that. Listeners, if
you want to fund Fred's stock options, go to
autosafety .org and click on Donate. And with
that, we'll jump to Michael Brooks' Gaslight.
Hell, my Gaslight is connected, not necessarily
an announcement itself, to the DOT's announcements
this week that... there are as they're claiming
record low traffic deaths and fatalities in 2025
these are the preliminary estimates of traffic
fatalities which are generally pretty close to
what we see as the end number every year um so
we'll see how that works out as the year moves
on they finalize the numbers so They are estimating
that there were 36 ,640 fatalities in 2025, which
is a 6 .7 decrease from 2024. That's good. You
know, and in fact, I believe, and I don't know
if this number has been completely verified,
but it looked to be close, if not. Correct. The
second lowest traffic fatality rate in recorded
history at 1 .10 fatalities per 100 million vehicle
miles. 100 million vehicle miles traveled. That's
good news. And, you know, it's it's you know,
I think my gaslight stems from some of the political
crowing here. I mean, what we're looking at here
is, you know, a preliminary estimate, first of
all. but beyond that you know this is you know
a fatality rate at 1 .10 you know looks great
in comparison to the past five years um starting
with with 2020 and coven when we saw the range
um of fatality rates jump up to about, I think
it was 1 .38. So, there's a significant difference
between the fatalities occurring on the road
today versus 2020, 2021, when we saw the worst
rates that we've seen in a long time. But, you
know, from 2009 through 2019, that range was
from 1 .08 to 1 .19 fatalities per 100 million
miles. So, If you look at this from my perspective,
you know, it's great news the fatality rate is
declining over a small sample of years post -pandemic
now, right? But it's really important to note
that we haven't made any substantial reductions
in the traffic fatality rate for more than 15
years at this point, which if you go back and
look at the fatality rates over time, I don't
know that we've had that long of a period of
stagnation. and the fatality rate kind of staying
the same place and not improving. And that's
in a time where, you know, manufacturers are
promising more safety tech and all this other,
you know, all this other stuff, you know, more
than ever. So it really makes you, you know,
question. a statement like this one from NHTSA
Administrator Jonathan Morrison. Under President
Trump and Secretary Duffy, American roads are
safer. The Trump administration has a strong
relationship with our law enforcement partners
responsible for keeping our communities safe.
NHTSA is doing our part by doubling down on safety
strategies that reduce risky driving behaviors
before they cost lives. And somewhat brushing
over the political crowing there, which obviously
an administration being in office for a year
is not going to have a significant impact on
how people are driving and the number of fatalities
on the road. So taking credit there is questionable
at best. But NHTSA is not doubling down on safety
strategies that reduce risky driving behaviors.
They're not pursuing, you know, one of the number
one, their number two and number three things
they could pursue right now to reduce risky driving
behaviors. Getting a rule out that establishes
a plan to get better driver monitoring into vehicles
to prevent distracted driving. Getting a rule
out to reduce impaired driving that they're mandated
by Congress to do and they're late on to get
technology into vehicles to prevent drunk driving.
Number three is getting a rule out to require
speed. prevention technology into vehicles. All
those things would reduce risky driving behavior.
You're not doubling down on those. It's just
a fact. NHTSA is not pursuing those strategies.
They're effectively ignoring them and pointing
to law enforcement as a solution here, which
it's not. So for that, that's my gaslight this
week. That's good. But don't you think law enforcement
has helped? I mean, we've seen the grappler.
Law enforcement is always out there helping.
I think you have to question whether you can
rely on law enforcement to completely address
the problems of drunk driving, speeding, and
distraction. I don't think you can. I think they're
always going to be there providing a support
and some enforcement that's going to deter some
people, but the people who are the worst speeders,
the worst drunk drivers, and the worst distracted
drivers don't care. And until their cars stop
them from doing those behaviors, they're going
to continue. You know, it's also worth noting
that NISA has been doged. They've lost a lot
of good people. And I frankly don't believe this
estimate at all, other than some numbers somebody
pulled out of their ass. It's earlier than it
normally comes out. How do they do that with
fewer people? This is the estimate. So it comes
out about this time every year. And this is all
based on fatality analysis reporting system.
So, you know, and, you know, it follows the recent
trend coming down from COVID. So I don't see
any evidence of an issue there with the data.
I mean, you know, perhaps, maybe in some world.
I know that there's a lot of questions about
various data operations in the federal government
right now when you've got a government that.
you know, seems to just want to create things
out of whole cloth and then find the data to
support it later. But I don't know about that
take on this one because that's just something
that would, you know, if NHTSA was somehow fudging
traffic fatality data, that would be a gigantic
failure on their part. I bet my usual nickel
on this one. You can't afford it. See how it
works out. What do you think is the reason for
the decline here? I mean, not Morrison's whatnot
saying we're going after unqualified truckers
and I think we're basically the same place on
safety where we were 15 years ago. And we're
just after COVID raised those rates temporarily.
We're returning to the norm. Oh, OK. Well, because
we're right where we were, you know, around 2009
at this point. Oh, yeah. OK. Well, that's good
to hear. And don't know. It's not good. Well,
it's that we've come down from the the covid,
the post covid. Yes. Come down from whatever
what what the things that were causing the covid
spike. But I think it's bad news that we don't
see. Plus, I mean, let's keep in mind here that
the United States is far, far behind on fatality
rates in vehicles compared to the rest of the
developed world. Right. We're not doing the job
right. And to celebrate, you know, this. kind
of return to 2009 um doesn't seem to be a very
you know uh it seems to be kind of tone deaf
on the part of the administration but you know
that's part for the course yeah that's not surprising
at all uh with that i'm going to uh judge our
gas light here and the winner is going to be
michael just because i like the color of his
uh shirt there you go that's how we do it okay
I'm going to wear this shirt every week. No,
you're not going to win every week. It's, you
know, it feels like you need the win. So I'm
giving it to you, even though, honestly, mine
was the most fun. So moving on, let's go into
another government related thing about from NTSB.
That's right. NTSB, it's an early report that
basically say, I'm going to quote from this AP
article. The systems that allow drivers to take
their hands off the wheel are convenient, but
don't improve safety because people are often
too reliant on them and end up paying more attention
to their cell phones and infotainment screens
than to the road, the head of the NTSB said Tuesday.
And this came out of, there was a hearing around
Ford's Blue Cruise where they had two fatal crashes.
The hearing was about two fatal crashes. Unfortunately,
I think they've had a few more than that. Whereas...
Hey, you're getting eyes off, hands off, the
car will drive itself. And as we were just talking
with autonomous vehicles, that's not a thing.
And this has been the thing sold to the consumers
saying, hey, I have Blue Cruise or I have Super
Cruise or I have Muska Cruise, whatever. And
people stopped paying attention to the road.
Further down in this article, we have a... Continuing
again, quoting, NTSB members expressed concerns
Tuesday that drivers who are under the influence
of alcohol or drugs seem to believe that using
a driver assistance system can help them drive
while impaired. It's obvious to anyone paying
attention that people are buying this technology
with the plan of using it to help them drive
home drunk, Bill Kopman said. Which, I mean,
brilliant advertising. Hey, look, we know you're
going to stop at the bar and have a couple. So
let us drive you home. Some restrictions may
apply. This is for entertainment purposes only.
I mean, effectively, both of these, I think it
helps to look at these two crashes they're looking
at, the similarities in them. they occurred at
night they occurred because i guess the initial
cause of it is you know there were stationary
vehicles parked in in in the travel way right
at night time at highway speeds and these these
ford vehicles came along um using blue cruise
and were not able to detect those vehicles in
time to avoid the collisions um you know there's
a question here you know they talk about driver
monitoring that they recommend you know better
driver monitoring systems i think there's a question
in the in these type of situations as to whether
driver monitoring you know is is or or whether
driver monitoring is going to be able to prevent
these kind of crashes when the vehicle isn't
even detecting a problem Um, until the last minute,
seeing these vehicles, does the human involved
is going to have an opportunity to take over
in these, you know, bang, bang type crash situations.
I don't know. Driver monitoring could help the
human stay, um, focused on the driving task.
And maybe that human then picks up this car,
stopped in the middle of the road in front of
them and avoids a collision. So yes, driver monitoring
will work there. Um, but these are, you know,
These are the types of crashes that scare us
with level two and above systems. Nighttime,
you know, the Blue Crew system. I'm not sure
if they have, you know, a LiDAR or if they're
just using cameras like Tesla, but either way,
they do. Just cameras. There's no LiDAR. There's
no LiDAR on Blue Crews? They don't have radar?
They have radar. Yeah, yeah. A lot of the, even
Tesla used to have radar before they eliminated
that in favor of the visual thing. But there's
a problem here. particularly with that situation,
you know, that dark situation when we're worried
that cameras aren't going to work properly. you
know automatic emergency braking even non -level
two right uh should be working in these situations
to prevent crashes so this is an issue that you
know you know involves a lot of different you
know human factors considerations is the human
doing the right thing is the car doing the right
thing is the car monitoring the human to make
sure the human's doing the right thing so they
issued a lot of recommendations here um to the
dot you know they basically said hey dot you
know we've you need to integrate And make sure
a lot of this stuff works. You need to make sure
automatic emergency braking is working. There
was some speeding involved in one of these crashes.
You need to make sure intelligent speed assistance
is working and driver monitoring is working properly.
You need to promote better driver engagement
in the driving task. And you need to prevent
misuse and automation complacency. And here's
what I like. You need to set maximum operational
speeds for automation systems based on their
capabilities. If your vehicle is not capable
of detecting a stationary vehicle in the road
at highway speeds, then why are you allowing
it to operate at that speed? There's some other
interesting recommendations around, you know,
in this case, there were there were some alcohol
or drug involvement. So NTSB reiterated their
recommendation that it's a, you know, get on
the ball when it comes to impairment prevention
technology. um which is something that you know
what we just talked about that's that that's
something that nitza was required to get some
work done on prior to now and simply hasn't they've
kind of kicked the can down the road on that
we've talked about that with the dad systems
and other things um they also sent some recommendation
to to ford um and you know one of them was around
making the driver monitoring better um in this
situation it looked like they thought that that
a driver could be looking at their phone and
the system would interpret it as though the driver
was engaged, even though the driver clearly wasn't.
So they told Ford to do that. And probably one
of the more interesting things in here to me
is that they've also recommended to the U .S.
DOT and NHTSA to... require manufacturers who
are producing vehicles with this data, I mean,
with these capabilities to collect data that
would allow those manufacturers to properly report
problems in these systems. effectively kind of
holding the rest of the industry to a Tesla standard
of data collection. One of the reasons that Tesla
shows up so much more frequently in the standing
general order data than other manufacturers,
you know, they obviously have a lot more connected
vehicles on the road. That's part of it. But
the other part of it is when a Tesla vehicle
is in a crash. where the airbags are deployed,
you know, that's automatically reported back
to Tesla, which then has a duty to report that
on to NHTSA as part of the standing general order.
Not all manufacturers have that. ability to collect
and send the data back to home base and that
then obligates them to report it to NHTSA. So
the NTSB here is recommending that, you know,
like Anthony said, maybe all these crashes aren't
being captured. They're not, apparently. And
something that NHTSA needs to do is to enable
something that we've always called kind of like
an advanced. EDR or a, you know, it's an advanced
black box system. It's a black box system in
the vehicle that collects. Similar to what Tesla
is doing, collecting, you know, a million lines
of data every minute or so, collects a lot of
ongoing data on the vehicle operation and sends
it back to the manufacturer so that they can
then use that for developing safer vehicles and
also report safety incidents to the federal government
so that we can continue to make these types of
systems safer. I like what you said there is
why. Why sell these products if these vehicles
can't operate under these conditions? Why allow
it to go at this speed if it can't handle this?
And it makes me think of automatic emergency
braking, whereas every manufacturer is saying,
we can't get it to work at highway speed. That's
insane. But hey, we're going to sell you a system
that runs at highway speed and above, but we
can't make AEB work. So yeah, that's insane.
That's very similar to the same nonsense. We're
constantly pushing back on the AV industry. Well,
when the AV industry is out there saying we can
do everything. And then the automobile industry
is at the same time out of the side of its mouth
saying we can't, we can't. meet this AEB standard.
And I'm just sitting there rolling my eyes going,
how can you break autonomous vehicles appropriately
and claim they're safer than humans and all that
nonsense that you continuously trumpet and at
the same time say that you can't make automatic
emergency braking that detects bicyclists, motorcyclists,
and can't operate at higher speeds and blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah. It doesn't make sense.
Yeah, from a consumer's point of view, because
when both GM and Ford, they came out with their
hands -off systems, their Blue Cruise, Super
Cruise, I was like, oh, this seems like a better
approach. They're using HD maps, it's geo -fenced,
whatnot, but then realizing, oh, we're going
to let your cars go at 70 miles per hour, but
we can't brake. I think consumers have to have
this in mind that... what they're selling to
you is, here's a loaded gun. Well, I mean, I
think it would be great. You know, I think that's
the number one of the number one issues here
is that some of us are, you know, highly skeptical
of claims made by corporate America. And some
people just believe it, right? And they hop in
these cars and they believe a lot of the hype,
even if the manufacturers caution them in one
way or the other. And so they get in trouble.
Yeah. And I don't blame the consumer at all.
It's it's this is how it's. No, I do not. Because
come on, you're a busy day and you're told repeatedly
these cars drive themselves. We're living in
the future. Everything is great. People hear
artificial intelligence. They skip the word artificial
and just focus on intelligence. And yeah, you're
a busy person. I don't believe it. I think that's
where NHTSA. I kind of put a dual responsibility
there. See, I don't want to blame the drivers.
I think as consumers, we have a responsibility
to. to try to operate the vehicle safely and
apprise ourselves of what we're actually operating,
right? Yes. There's certainly a duty there. But
at the same time, I think manufacturers are failing
in their duty to properly describe these systems
and their capabilities. And they're so much more
intent on flooding vehicles with all these convenience
features and monetizing it, essentially, than
they are at ensuring that they operate safely.
Yes. So consumer beware. Uh, yes, that's what
we're going to go there. Uh, let's jump to a,
uh, also related to speeding. This is, this is
interesting. I think it was 10th grade physics
class. I invented this system and now Cal Colorado
has released it. Whereas I was driving in the
New York state thruway and realizing the New
York state thruway is a, it's, you know, it's
your toll is based on the distance you go. So,
and I was like, well, Hey, I know I'm getting
on in the Harriman entrance and I'm leaving the
New Paltz one. Speed limit's 55, but I'm doing
70. I was 16. Leave me alone. And I realized
it's a set fix. It's a fixed distance. They should
be able to know that I arrived way too early
at this point. And so now the state of Colorado,
they're putting Waze and Google Maps and Apple
Maps, all these systems that alert you to speed
cameras up ahead, essentially out of business.
I'm going to quote from an article from MotorOne
.com. The state's new automated vehicle identification
systems uses several cameras to calculate your
average speed between them. And if it is 10 miles
per hour or more over the limit, you get a ticket.
No longer be able to slow down as you approach
a camera and speed back up after passing it.
Not that you should be speeding on public roads
in the first place. This is, I think, a very
simple solution to a major problem. I mean, yeah.
And it gets at the worst of the speeders too,
right? I mean, you're not going to be able to,
you know, it's, I don't, the average person getting
called into this section is not going to be just
going 10 miles per hour of the limit because
you're going to have slowdowns during your travels.
So, you know, if you get a ticket here, you're
probably exceeding the speed limit by significantly
more than just 10 miles per hour at certain times
during your trip. I think it's a great. A great
way to approach things. There's no way to dodge
this system unless you have a time machine. Yeah,
the the Colorado Department of Transportation
installed the cameras along a construction zone.
The finance, seventy five dollars and zero points
for exceeding the speed limit. And the police
issue it to the vehicle's owner, regardless of
who is driving. So you can always go back to
the case of it wasn't me, man, wasn't me. But
I think that's maybe maybe this type of situation
will allow. law enforcement to do a better job
attaching tickets to cars and autonomous vehicles.
Yeah. Since the person seems to be trying to,
you know, squeeze out from under the punishment
in so many situations by claiming they weren't
in the vehicle. That, and I think all 16 -year
-old drivers should get a speeding ticket automated
to be like, oh, shit, I can't do this anymore.
Yeah, I got one from a real cop when I was 15,
and that did it for me. Oh, I only got one from
a real cop when I was in my 30s. He pulled me
and said, do you know how fast you're going?
And I'm not going to continue the rest of this
because we're on the auto safety podcast. Anyway,
go to autosafety .org, click on donate. I'm not
going to reveal my life as a Fred Perkins type
character. Let's jump. Please, I'm very respectful
of officers who stopped me. I was very respectful.
I just wanted to giggle when he told me how fast
he thought I was going. It's like this car has
a turbo, man. There's no one on the road. Yeah,
I was respectful. I didn't even cry in front
of him. I saved that from when I got home to
my parents. It was, look, the New York State
throw, there was nobody on it. Perfect straight
shot. Had to try it. Anyway, speaking of Fred
Perkins, let's go to his favorite topic, Waymo.
So San Antonio News, it's KSAT 12. I'm actually
slightly confused about this because there's
also KAST. Well, it's. The Internet's confusing.
Where is somebody caught on camera, a Waymo going
the wrong way down a school drop off area? They
do this everywhere. And this is not only fascinating
that they're going the wrong way down a one way
street, but they blew past a police officer saying,
you can't go this way. And the Waymo is just
like, screw you. Who are you going to arrest?
No one. Sucker. So there's another. frightening
thing and i mean at this point you have to wonder
if waymo should just suspend operations and in
school zones and school zones are around school
buses they're clearly not not doing a good job
here right oh and so apparently waymo is now
operating in san antonio i didn't realize that
yeah so now they're just like hey austin school
districts you're not special Yeah, and I don't
know if they're operating there fully autonomous.
I guess they might be. I think that started a
couple months ago, actually. So there's not a
safety driver or a training driver that's in
there in cities where they haven't fully deployed
yet. It looks like they're fully deployed in
San Antonio. Another Waymo story. There's a story.
This is in, I believe, Los Angeles. A woman ordered
a Waymo. It's picking her up at a fast food restaurant
and it goes the wrong way down the drive -thru.
The video is hilarious as her son tries to be
like, Waymo, you can't go here. Way, way, back
up, back up. It's funny. People in the other
part of the drive -thru are like, what's going
on? And the poor son is like, hey, sorry. But
the weirdest part of the video is not that the
Waymo does the wrong thing. It's a Waymo. The
weirdest part is the guy lets his mother get
into the backseat of the Waymo. Well, it's headed
the wrong way. I don't know how this video ended.
Are you sure it wasn't his mother -in -law? Well,
you know, look, he let another human get into
the Waymo while it's pointed the wrong direction.
Yeah, these are two funny little light videos
you can see giggling about how Waymos are perfect.
They never drive drunk. They never drive angry.
They never drive confused. Yeah, well, remember,
this is end -to -end AI, right? The Waymos are
going to have to do this hundreds of times before
it affects the end -to -end AI logic to tell
them not to do it. So, you know, this is something
that's going to be a recurring phenomenon with
the Waymos. And everybody else is using end -to
-end AI just because they can't interpret stuff
that doesn't happen over and over again. It's
just not possible with their end -to -end AI.
It's just maddening to me that we're in an era
where we're willing to accept the fact that if
an end -to -end AI -enabled AV screws up royally,
that we're supposed to say, yeah, but keep training
and letting it make this horrible mistake over
and over again until it's fixed versus fix it,
you know? It's kind of a whole new world, you
know, for automobiles. You know, when there was
a defect in the past like that, it's, you know,
something you have to fix now. You got to fix
it. But the way that these companies are describing
their training models and things, it's like,
yeah, well, it'll happen at some point. And we're
not going to stop operating around, you know,
school buses in the meantime or drive -thrus.
We can't just fix it. We've got to let the vehicle
kind of learn its way. Yeah. I mean, when you're
a terrible driver as a child, going back to my
speeding ticket story in which I was grounded
from driving for at least two months, I think.
Wow, the police are aggressive there. You know,
that's how we address, you know, human drivers,
at least, you know, those with parents who are
looking out for them and trying to make sure
they learn their lesson and get better at driving.
They're, you know, removed from action. Whereas
with these autonomous vehicles, we're saying,
no, get back out there, kid. You need to learn
some more. Well, that's the key difference between
humans and AI. You know, in your case, what you
did is you had a lesson and you were able to
expand that out. to all of the circumstances
where it might apply. The end -to -end AI is
exactly the opposite. What it has to do is accumulate
lots and lots of experiences with questionable
results, and then somehow resolve that into a
rule that's applicable to those situations. So
the human logic is just exactly the opposite
of what the end -to -end AI is doing. attempt
to equate those two is just dead wrong but as
friends of the show missy cummings pointed out
you can keep training these things forever and
ever and it will eventually hallucinate because
that's how the math works out it's not uh it's
not an error in the math it's just the math it's
gonna hallucinate so maybe the uemo was operating
properly it was just like no man If I was just
like, I want to lose weight. So if I go through
the drive through in reverse, I didn't eat those
fries and that shake. Who knows? Maybe they thought
they were in the UK and the driver's side was
on the right. We just don't know. Maybe. Yeah.
It was like, I want to I want to learn reverse
psychology, drive past the bus in the wrong direction.
But at any rate, we're told we just have to wait
and be patient while. the AI learns versus we're
going to fix that. Yeah. In the future, everything
will be better. It won't be. It's like bringing
fake it till you make it into the area of automotive
defects. This is not the way Piggly Wiggly operates,
by the way. They're very deterministic. Joe's
over. Well played, Mr. Pert. We haven't heard
Piggly Wiggly in weeks. I know it. It's been
a drought. I know. And because of that, you get
to go into your towel. Oh, thank you. All right,
well, today I'm kind of going back to my roots,
talking about nuts and bolts. Screwballs. We've
spent altogether too much time talking about
AI and stuff that we can't control. So this will
be just a very quick tutorial on how computers
can actually control the car. So there's a component
called the ball screw, and what it does... is
it translates rotational motion into translational
motion. So if you rotate the shaft, a device
goes back and forth on the shaft. So in electric
vehicles in particular, this is very important
because you may not have a hydraulic system.
So if you want the computer to control where
the car is going, it's got to have some way of
talking to the front wheels because the front
wheels are changing direction and thereby...
Direct in the car, one direction or another.
So ball screws are one of several ways to do
this. They're ubiquitous in cars. There's lots
of them. And they're really cool little devices.
So they do it very efficiently. There's a helically
grooved shaft, and there's a nut that is fitted
to the shaft. It has recirculating ball bearings
inside. So you twirl the shaft around, and the...
and the nut slides back and forth. There's various
means of controlling this, but in every case,
there's an electric motor in electric vehicles,
or a hydraulic motor is an option, that turns
the shaft precisely a certain amount, and then
the nut moves a certain amount, and so your car
will go the required amount left or right, and
thereby steering the car. There's a lot of ways
of implementing this. There's various kinds of
electric motors you can use. You can use a standard
DC motor. You can use something called a stepping
motor, which you've all experienced in your printer
at home. When it sings, it's really operating
through the stepping motor. Then there's open
loop control, which is the computer sends a signal,
which could be either analog or digital, to the
electric motor. which then rotates the shaft
the desired amount. So it can be something called
a voltage signal. A higher voltage might mean
you're moving more. Low voltage could mean you're
moving back to the original position. Something
called a pulse width modulated digital signal,
which has a certain number of pings in it. And
the number of pings is related to how far the
motor rotates. conventionally linked with the
stepping motor. And then you've got open loop
control, which is that the computer sends a command
to the motor, the motor turns, but there's no
feedback from the motor to the computer that
says, I've actually accomplished what you wanted
me to do. Now in an EV where you have a human
being sitting behind the steering wheel, if it's
a little bit off, The human will make an adjustment.
So open loop control can work perfectly well
on those. But in an AV, you've really got to
control it more carefully. So you've got to have
some kind of feedback mechanism that says, you
know, I wanted to turn the wheel or I wanted
to turn the front wheels x degrees. So I'm going
to measure how much they actually turn. That
gets feedback. It's fed back as a closed loop
to the computer. Computer makes appropriate.
adjustments and so on. So that's a closed loop
control. Stepping motors are often used because
it's well suited to the pulse with modulated
signal that comes out of the computer. If it's
a two -wire control system, if you've got a multi
-wire cable, you can have each of the different
channels associated with a unique voltage that
goes up or down depending on what your digital
signal is. And blah, blah, blah. I know you're
all blanking out by now. But the point is, there's
different ways of doing this. I was trying to
hide it. I was trying to hide it. Yeah, not very
well. Another thing to think about is that if
it's a digital control system, the resolution
of the digital signals is inversely proportional
to the speed it takes to convert the analog information
to the digital information. In a very demanding
situation, this can be a factor in how well the
computer is driving the vehicle and how well
the vehicle is responding to the commuter commands.
So here's the point of all this. All these considerations
impact safety because they all affect how the
actual massive machine called the vehicle is
operating, where it's going and what it's doing.
And this is throughout the vehicle. It can be
brakes. It can be steering. It can be the fan.
All of these digital things happen. So for any
company that says, well, my vehicle has operated
for so many millions of miles and we've only
had X number of people who are killed and it's
our fault. Therefore, it's safe to go ahead.
It's complete nonsense because all of these tiny
little factors. The details matter, will affect
the overall safety of an individual vehicle.
And unless your base of statistics is made up
of identical vehicles that are identical all
the way down to the smallest part of the vehicle
that's affecting its operational safety, to extend
any individual vehicle's performance into an
aggregate to say that, well, my fleet is perfectly
fine because... We've had all these different
vehicles, all these different types. Everything's
been safe. We haven't killed too many people
yet. Therefore, we're going to be safe in the
future. It's just nonsense. In particular, if
you look at the evolution of the Waymo vehicle,
for example, it's gone through different types
of mechanical vehicles, many different loads
of software. In fact, the software stack now
is completely different from the software stack
they used. when they accumulated the statistics
that they're using now to try to justify their
safety. So it's very difficult. The devil's in
the details, even down to the level of what kind
of motor are you using to drive the steering
that's in the vehicle. So that's the point of
this, right? The details are important. The details
matter. And there's a lot of details that are
not held constant. from one vehicle to another,
or even within a particular vehicle model. So
be careful when somebody says, we've got a lot
of experience, therefore the future is going
to be great. There's really no basis for that
unless they've done the homework to look down
into the guts of the vehicle and how all these
different details have affected the accumulation
of those statistics. Does that make any sense?
You're still awake, though. I can see that. I
mean, the end part, I mean, I'm still trying
to figure out exactly how a ball screw works.
I've pulled up some diagrams and figuring all
that out. But, you know, you ended on an upward
note as far as details go. I want to know, as
a consumer, I go to buy a car. What should I
take away from what you said? Do I worry about
that or do I not worry about that? Worrying about
it is unproductive because you'll never get the
answer. Okay. Okay. So this is something that
should be considered at the level of the government
regulators who are giving people license to go
ahead and operate these vehicles on public streets.
They should be asking, what's the heritage? You're
saying that you've gone, you know, 100 million
miles, no problems. Well, how many different
models? of cars are you doing that with? Is the
model that you're using now and the software
stack that you're using now a significant part
of these statistics or are you starting over?
Are you ringing the bell now with a new design
and you're going to tell me in a year how well
it's worked? So there's a difference between
trailing metrics, which are like that. We've
gone 100 million miles, haven't killed anybody
yet. That's a trailing metric. And leading metrics,
which say that based upon this new information,
this is how the vehicle should be responding.
So a leading metric, for example, would be number
of factory orders to produce cars. Well, you
know that if the number of orders to produce
cars goes up, it's very likely to have more cars
on the street. In a few years, right? Because
you've got the orders and you're doing that.
It's a leading metric. If you say, well, over
the last five years, X number of people have
died. That's a trillion metric. And the fact
that X number of people died over the last five
years is only distantly related to the number
of people who will die in the next five years.
So do you see the difference there? I gotcha.
I gotcha. Some of the metric system. Yeah. And
so. If you were to say, okay, I've had this particular
driving hazard, it's because of a lousy ball
screw. I've now replaced the ball screw with
a superior design. And here's the statistics
from the engineering results that say why I'll
solve this problem. So therefore, we shouldn't
have this problem in the future. That's a different
approach. That's using leading statistics or
leading indicators to say that in the future.
It shouldn't be a problem. That's the whole heart
of the safety recalls, right? You've got evidence
that a particular problem has been identified
and you've got evidence that you fixed that particular
problem. Therefore, in the future operation of
the vehicles, once they've had the safety recall
in place, you shouldn't have that particular
problem for the future operation. Unless you're
talking about a rear view camera. You still shouldn't
have it if they fix the problem, but still. So
I guess what I'm trying to highlight here is
the difference between illusions based upon past
behavior of an idea and the reality of the operations
in the future based upon the actual understanding
of what's happening in the vehicle. End of rant.
End of rant. Yes. And with that, we'll jump into
recalls. First up, Toyota, 73 ,528 vehicles.
The 2023 to 2025 Toyota Corolla Cross Hybrid.
The minimum, oh, this is under certain conditions,
pedestrians may have reduced ability to detect
the AVAS sound, increasing risk of crash with
a pedestrian during reversing maneuvers. Now,
this is the... Like the, I don't know, what's
the, I don't know, the whistler. Yeah, the electric
vehicles that don't produce enough noise to alert
people around them until they reach a certain
speed. So under that speed, they have to play
a sound at a certain, let's see, I think they
call it a certain sound pressure level requirement
that's specified in FMVSS. These Toyotas, when
they're in reverse, are not producing a loud
enough sound. So they're going to modify your
software to make the reverse sound louder. Owners
should hear about that in late May. I think it's
just going to be beep, beep, beep, beep, like
a big truck. It will confuse people. They won't
know where it's coming from. Anyway, next up,
Mercedes 932 vehicles. The 2026 Mercedes Maybach
GLS 604 Matic. I think that's what Fred, Fred,
you have the Maybach, right? Some other GLS 450
4Matic. I've got one, but it's wet, so I can't
use it. There are all these 2026 Mercedes that
I'm sure cost well over $100 ,000. And a side
note, I have a friend who grew up in Europe and
he's like, I'm always like, oh, some Mercedes
really nice. And he's like, I would never buy
a Mercedes. And I was like, why? He said, because
we use them as taxi cabs in Europe. I was like,
oh, fair point. This is an event of a crash requiring
passenger airbag activation that passenger airbag
might not deploy as intended, which could impair
the restraining effect of the airbag since it
didn't deploy. Yeah, what's causing that all
here appears to be that they, or is, that they
have used, I think they used the wrong fabric
in manufacturing the airbags. They call it a...
Let's see. They call it a deviant or a deviation
from the airbag fabric material that they typically
use. Look, if you can afford a Maybach, you're
some sort of deviant. Yeah, they're – you know,
they're – It looks like they're going to get
you a new airbag. I'm assuming the replacement
here has got to be replacing the airbag module.
So they're replacing the airbag module. And it's
only going to take them a month or so to get
this one ready. It looks like mid -May, later
May is when owners will be hearing about this.
Well, there aren't very many Maybachs. There's
only 900 vehicles that recall anyway. And while
you're getting your Maybach repaired, while you're
waiting for them to do that, just go to autosafety
.org and click on Donate. I mean, it's a rounding
error for you. Yeah, well, there were only 13
Maybachs involved in this recall. Well, those
13 people got extra money to spare is what I'm
trying to say. Hey, and our last recall, shock
of all shocks, the thunder from down under, the
world reigning champion, the Cisco kid, I don't
know, Ford Motor Company, 422 ,613 vehicles.
Have they ever recalled less than 100 ,000 vehicles
at a time? Anyway. Yes. The 2021 to 2023 Lincoln
Navigator, the same for the Expedition, the 2022
to 2023 Ford Super Duty. Interesting. A windshield
wiper arm may operate erratically, becoming inoperable
and detached from the vehicle. That's not great.
We should get that one fixed. I like how it connects
into the Ford Super Duty, though. I don't even
know what that means, but essentially you're
going to have a windshield wiper arm that doesn't
work. And if you're in a storm, obviously that
is not just a safety defect in this case when
it breaks, but it's also a violation of the Federal
Motor Vehicle Safety Standards because you wouldn't
have an operable wiper system at that point.
It looks like they're going to just replace your
wiper system. But, but they don't seem to have
a final date for this action. Owners are going
to hear about it in the next couple of weeks,
but it's not clear when the actual remedy will
be available. Well, Ford's just hoping that a
Chinese company will buy them soon enough. No.
Oh, okay. So I lied. We do have one more, but
this one didn't make it into NHTSA's database,
if that's true. I get it. Yeah, I haven't seen.
Let me see if I've seen that one yet. I didn't
check this morning. We have a link to Motor Trend.
This is a stop sale for the 2026 Chevrolet Corvette
due to an issue with the rear turn signals, the
2025 and 2026 Corvette, which is a, I don't know
how I feel about the way it looks. I don't even
know what it looks like. I mean, it's got a picture
on this site. Yeah, the turn signal's not good.
GM says they're going to fix it over the air.
which is cool. Yeah, when we'll... Yeah, we don't
really know anything about this one yet because
it showed up in the news, but for whatever reason,
it hasn't showed up on NHTSA's website, so we
don't have the defect submission. Yeah, so if
you have this vehicle, tell us, what do you think
about the way it looks? And if you don't have
this vehicle and you've seen it, what do you
think about the way it looks? Anyway, with that,
that's our show. We'll be back next week. Fingers
crossed. Bye -bye. Bye -bye. For more information,
visit www .autosafety .org.