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, it
is Tuesday, April 21st. While we record this,
I hope you're having a wonderful day. And if
you're looking for work, may we have a suggestion
for you? You can join the staff of the Center
for Auto Safety as we get into car crashes with
18 wheelers. That's right. Risk your life for
a payout. That sound like a plan, guys, that
we're going to do? I'm all in. That sounds great.
No. No. Michael, of course, says no. He's a grown
up. I know. I'm just scared. Yeah. Those are
big vehicles. There's an article in the New Yorker,
which I don't know if we can link to it. I don't
know. We'll figure it out. We'll figure out a
way to send you the link. That starts off and
you think, oh, this is pretty good. I'm going
to do a couple of quotes. It talks about how
large trucks account for 5 % of the vehicles
in the United States, but play a role in 10 %
of fatal accidents. In America, more than 5 ,000
people are killed each year in accidents involving
large trucks, and the victims tend to be occupants
of smaller vehicles. A sedan or SUV, even a school
bus, is no match for the magnitude of an 18 -wheeler.
Now, Fred, Mr. Science Perkins, why is it that
even a school bus is no match for an 18 -wheeler?
Just a question of mass, relative mass. Yeah,
well, I haven't gotten to mass. So, you know,
when a big thing hits a small thing, the small
thing gets squished. That's science. That's physics.
And that makes good comedy routines, too. Yeah.
And it's also why the large truck carriers have
to carry a lot more insurance than your average
passenger vehicle, which plays into this story.
Yeah. So we're not going to get too far into
this because I'm reading this at first completely
cold. I have no idea. And I'm like, OK, it's
about trucks and how dangerous it is for 18 -wheeler
drivers. And I want to have another quote from
this article says most accidents involving big
rigs aren't fatal, but there are a lot of them.
Half a million or so each year. Just nuts. And
they adhere to certain actuarial probabilities.
Large trucks crashes tend to happen on weekdays,
often at night. You're thinking, OK, there's
gonna be more about this. These guys are working
too long hours. No, it is about a con in outside
of New Orleans where essentially this family
has gotten together and said, hey, we're going
to get we're going to spot. He's 18 wheelers
and we're going to crash into them. We're going
to wait for them to start changing the lane.
We're going to speed up. So they hit us controlled
crash. We claim all sorts of soft tissue damage,
whatnot, because 18 wheelers, they have at least
like a million dollars of liability insurance.
So, Hey, I got in a little crash, get a payday.
It sounds like the American way. It sounds like
something that was happening in Florida in the
nineties where people would like slam on the
brakes to get rear end damage. Like, Oh, you
injured me. Now, there's a lot of people involved
here beyond, you know, the one family, the Harris
family, I think it was that they tracked in this.
But it was, you know, you've got a former stuntwoman
lawyer, her husband, some very shady doctors
who I don't think were ever involved in prosecution.
But, you know, we're conducting a lot of unnecessary
spinal surgeries to boost the prospects of the
cases. You know, a guy who was ultimately murdered
to prevent him from being a witness who was conducting
a lot of the driving in these crashes and then
would leave the vehicles and pretend that he
wasn't the driver or was just a witness after
the fact. So there was a pretty big network of.
people conducting fake crashes to make money.
Luckily, there weren't any deaths or I don't
believe any real significant injuries as a result
of this. But there's a lot of negative outflows
from it, which is all of our prices go up when
there are fake crashes. that are being paid out
by insurance. You know, not only our prices for,
for insurance, but also prices for the things
that trucking companies are shipping around the
country. And then beyond that, I'm sure there's
some, some costs, you know, rising costs to medical
insurance and other things involved when you've
got a lot of fake injuries being claimed, fake
surgeries being conducted. But, and even beyond
that, you know, you hear people, and I've heard,
you know, lawyer friends of mine in Mississippi
saying, oh, look at all these trucking lawyers.
They're terrible. This is what they do. Well,
that's not what they do. This is, you know, one
lawyer in New Orleans who was, you know, essentially
fresh out of law school and was, you know. doing
illegal things to make money, not trying to protect,
you know, victims of trucking crashes. So, you
know, it's a good example of how, you know, one
bad apple can cast a pall across a bunch, but
also how, you know, we really need to consider
the fact that this could be going on. I mean,
this is the reason why I would advise many people
to have a dash cam in their car. to record what's
going on when you're in a crash because A, people
who are going to get into a crash will inevitably
think that they're not at fault just because
a lot of humans walk around every day thinking
they do nothing wrong and that they're perfect.
And they want to avoid the financial hit in other
times. And they want to prevent themselves from
being held responsible for something that was
their fault. So a dash cam is a great way to
avoid that scenario because it at least gives
you video. evidence of what took place, particularly
the forward and rear -facing dash cams, so you
don't miss things. But if you have, you know,
and also, you know, there are cars that are made
now that have their own dash cameras basically
integrated. Teslas have that, and I'm sure other
manufacturers will be joining. Tesla and providing
those to consumers. So there are good ways to
protect yourself from this kind of behavior on
the roads. And in fact, I think that the truckers
in these situations, there were some parts of
the article that suggested the trucking industry
even knew about this con, but felt like... it
was still going to cost them too much not to
settle these things out of court. And so they
continued settling them, even though they knew
there was a con going on. But it seems to me
like those trucking companies could have benefited
a lot from installing cameras on their vehicles.
I imagine it can be great for the drivers themselves
because, you know, they're getting conned into
this. That's got to be points on their license.
Yeah, or just having a crash when you're in a
semi is probably a really bad thing for your
future employment, right? Oh, what's the impact
of self -driving trucks on this situation? There's
no driver. They can get hit by a fraudulent crasher
or slammer, as they call them in the article.
They can get hit by a fraudulent slammer just
as quick as a human -driven vehicle can. Is the
company responsible if there's no driver? Again,
we've got that whole problem liability associated
with the self -driving vehicles. Yeah, I mean,
I think that's going to ultimately be a state
-by -state. based on which state has aligned
its laws with the operation of vehicles by computers.
That's an interesting... That's not something
states are doing, right? That's an interesting
question because the article points out there's
these slammers, that's the people driving the
car into it, but they have another car, a witness
car, that they use to flag the driver down because
one of the drivers says they didn't even feel
the impact. Because they're vehicles so big,
so they don't even know. So an automated truck,
I imagine, well, it's not going to feel anything,
but they might not even notice that this happened.
And you can't have that spotter vehicle flagging
down an empty cab. So that's, you know, that's
minus ones for self -driving trucks, because,
you know, how am I going to make my money? Okay,
that's the end of the show. That's the end of
the Center for Auto Safety with that comment.
Ultimately, you know, most of the responsible
parties went to jail, although one was murdered
to prevent him from cooperating with the FBI
and being a witness. And the doctors kind of
slid out of it without too many repercussions.
So, you know, I have no doubt that this is going
on in other places besides New Orleans. I would
have to say that the perpetrators here. you know,
not the smartest to conduct these operations
on the same stretch of interstate over and over
and over again, which raised the crash rates
and trucks on that portion of the interstate
to a point where I think there was one business
professor who looked into this and the odds of
this happening randomly were something like 7
.5 trillion to one or something like that. So
from a data perspective, you're not going to
get away with this kind of thing for long. Well,
we look forward to the Netflix four part documentary
on this, where they take 30 minutes of something
interesting and spread it out over four hours.
Yeah. Next up. Let's see. Oh, this is a kind
of a follow up from what we're talking about
last week, I believe, which is this is an article
from AOL. That's right. Ladies and gentlemen,
AOL still exists in some form. What about GeoCities?
Maybe this is part of it. I don't know. This
is MySpace as well. Why letting in cheaper Chinese
cars won't fix America's auto affordability crisis.
This is an article that kind of we talked about
this last week, whereas cars, you can't really
buy a car for 20K, even $25 ,000. The average
price of a new car is closer to $50 ,000. And
part of the argument is saying, hey, if you just
lower these tariffs, let all these Chinese vehicles
in, that can make everything great. This article
takes a slightly different angle saying, and
I'm going to quote. It is not just that cheap
cars vanished. It's that the conditions that
made them viable have eroded. Manufacturing has
become more capital intensive. That means you
actually have to pay people to do it. Safety
and environmental standards have raised the floor
for quality. Duh. Consumers have come to expect
durability, connectivity, and comfort that were
once luxuries. I'm going to argue that two out
of those three don't really cost much. Reversing
these trends would require more than trade liberalization.
It would involve rethinking regulations, financing
structures, urban design, and even cultural expectations
about what a car should be. Okay. Connectivity.
A cell phone cost inside a car? Pennies. You
know, there's no real cost to that. Comfort?
I mean, not everyone needs leather or vegan leather
seats, but you can get a comfortable... I mean,
heck, I think the most... Comfort can vary depending
on how crazy someone wants to be. Yeah, I think
this article is mostly nonsense. I mean, if you
put good quality cars on the market for $20 ,000,
people are going to buy them. This is nonsense.
Now, will that persist in the market forever?
Probably not. But, you know, when the Chinese
are finally allowed to sell the cars... In the
United States, at a very low price, which they
will have to do to get people to buy them, people
are going to buy them. You know, it took Hyundai,
what, 30 years before people started to think
of them as a reasonable car to truck your family
around. It's going to take Chinese companies
a long time, similarly, before they were established
in the market enough so that people buy them
and use them without commenting on their origin.
Yeah. And remember that the fix kind of identified
in the other article, you know, has some pretty
big barriers. Right. First of all, you have to
ensure that these vehicles are cyber secure and
aren't shipping, you know, national security
information that we want to protect back to China.
But also, and I think even more importantly.
That article called for domestic manufacture
of these vehicles. Now, I have no doubt that
they can probably ship a BYD car over to the
United States and sell it for $20 ,000. But if
you're requiring them to manufacture them in
America and employ Americans and follow those
pesky OSHA regulations and other things that
apparently they don't have the same formulation
for in China, you're not going to be able to
compete. You're not going to be able to stay
at that level, that low level of cost, I don't
believe. I don't imagine it'll be too much different.
I mean, again, the Hyundai Kia example. I mean,
this is a Korean manufacturer that now manufactures
in the south, the union -free south. There's
another problem with that, which says that we
don't want to send critical information that
can harm Americans to China. Well, implicitly,
they're saying it's perfectly okay to send that
private information to American companies. And
they can do with it what they will. That's bullshit.
And we're already sending it to them. And people
are very unaware and don't put a whole lot in.
I mean, we've continued to hear over and over.
And I think I did a Gaslight on this a few weeks
back about. how the alcohol detection systems
or driver monitoring systems are somehow government
mandates that are spying on you, which it couldn't
be further from the truth. They are government
mandates, but the mandates say nothing about
whether that data that's used to make you safe
has to be retained. It's the auto companies that
are choosing to retain that data so they can
sell it where the problem kicks in. For American
consumers, I guess the choice is here. Do you
want to ship all of the data your car generates
to an American company? Do you trust them any
more than you trust China? Maybe. Do you really
want to send that information to anyone? No.
Okay. I mean, sure. I don't know what the answer
is there. I got no idea. I'm not sure what the
national security concerns are. A Chinese company
getting access to road mapping data. Well, I
know. And you have to wonder if that's just,
you know, kind of the administration hyping up
a threat that may not be there in order to boost
the fortunes of, you know, American manufacturers.
So anything's possible these days, right? I'm
not wondering. I think I know the answer. And
the answer is? Answer is take off the gratuitous
taxes. on these cars and let people buy cheaper
cars. I get better things to do with my money
than send it to GM. Ladies and gentlemen, if
you have better things to do with your money,
send it to the Center for Auto Safety. That's
right. Go to autosafety .org. Click on Donate.
Follow Fred's lead. He just donated $5 billion.
Maybe not that much. I don't know. He's wearing
a vest and a hat. All right. Let's follow up
on another story. There's another continuation
from last week. CBS News. Last week, we talked
about their 60 Minutes program. detailing shadow
trucking companies. That's not what it's called.
What are they called? These basically shell alien
carriers, million carriers. That's the word.
And CBS News continued further with this story,
which is amazing, which is great. I'm going to
quote from the CBS News article titled How Dangerous
Trucking Companies Escape Their Past, Change
Names and Get Back on the Road. I did that after
a relationship once. Quoting, trucking operators
that evade regulators by changing their names
and registration information are so common they
have a name, chameleon carriers. The deadly shell
game on America's highways has a track record
of devastation that has persisted for decades
despite repeated promises of government crackdowns.
CBS News goes really into detail with DOT data
on this, saying that basically the federal government
approved more than 10 ,000 new trucking companies
over the last five years. You know, at least
141 people have died in crashes with these reconstituted
these chameleon carriers. It's a it's amazing.
You know, what it is really is a joke of an enforcement
system. I mean, you have to say this. The Federal
Motor Carrier Safety Mission is completely failing
Americans here. I mean, and look no further than,
you know, the bullets, you know, right below
the start of the article on CBS. There's a video,
but there's also an article. And it says that
one agent for one of these chameleon characters.
Carriers registered more than 100 new companies
using the email address WTF FMCSA at hotmail
.com. The email address didn't even work. And,
you know, they were approved 100 times using
a fake email address that essentially is. making
fun of the FMCSA. I don't know how much bigger
of a red flag you can have than something like
that going on behind the scenes. How do you not
pick up on that as a safety enforcement agency?
They got doged. Yeah, there we go. That's where
I was going. That's one of the benefits of reducing
government staff is that nobody's going to enforce
the law. I mean, it's a great system. You know,
it works in the IRS, too. They've removed all
of the people who are supposed to enforce the
law and recover money from tax cheats. Unfortunately,
we don't have information that confirms that
all this happened after, you know, January 2025.
So that's a tough one. Tough, tough, tough, tough
proof there. But I've spent some time with some
AI tools over the years, and I'm not sure there's
one sophisticated enough to catch, you know,
a fake email address that ends in hotmail .com.
Like, how do you do that? That's, that's, you
know, it's hotmail. Ah, come on. Is this thing
on? Yeah, this is bad. All right. Let's go to
another story that's continuous things we've
talked about in the past. Phantom breaking. Everyone's
lesser known opera from carcomplaints .com. Honda
wins phantom breaking lawsuit trial. Now, I don't
really like the title of this article. I think
it could have come with something better. Nor
do I like the outcome of this because it's strange.
I'm going to quote, and Honda argued just because
the braking system sometimes has problems does
not mean it's legally defective. And this is
referring to their automatic emergency braking.
The argument being that, hey, these brakes just
engage randomly without warning with nothing
in the way. And Honda's part of their argument
is saying sometimes our stuff doesn't work doesn't
mean it's legally defective, which is so sly.
It's defective. Well, look, NHTSA has had an
investigation opened into these specific Hondas
for years now and hasn't made a finding of a
defect. So, you know, there's Honda's proof.
A lot of other manufacturers have had recalls
that have been based on the phantom braking.
Unfortunately, at this point, you know, the automatic
emergency braking rulemaking doesn't kick in
until 2029. So we're still waiting another three
years before. Vehicles are going to have to pass,
you know, at least a rudimentary test to ensure
that they're not, you know, breaking and inadvertently
breaking in response to nothing. And automakers
have been arguing this for a while now. You know,
automatic emergency braking is not going to be
perfect, particularly at higher speeds, which
gives the systems, you know, less time to detect
things. And, you know, it means you also have
to look at objects that are further away and
coming up faster than if you were to be going
slower. So they're right in some ways, right?
Automatic emergency braking is clearly not perfect.
And, you know, we're still going through my,
you know. tried and true analogy of education.
We're still at an elementary school level of
education for automatic emergency braking. It's
not perfect yet. We've seen thousands of phantom
braking complaints come through NHTSA's system
every year. So we know that there are problems.
Now, this case is actually a class action where
Honda owners are suing Honda and saying, you
know. We had a dangerous defect in our car. I
can't drive my car anymore. You know, these are
these are these are mostly I believe this is
a class action that's looking for, you know,
compensation for for economic losses, not because
there were, you know, crashes involved here.
So it's and, you know, it's it's this is something
I mean, it's one of these areas where I really
think we have to kind of step back and take a
look at the entire scope of. The entire environment
here, automatic emergency braking rules have
been delayed now, I would say, for, you know.
well over a decade. I think NHTSA should have
had something in play a lot longer ago. Those
have been delayed now until 2029. Meanwhile,
you know, this technology has gone out into virtually
every vehicle on the road, and there are no federal
standards regulating how it operates, how it
performs, how it can be tested. All these things
contribute to an environment where some vehicles
are going to perform much worse than others.
These Honda vehicles are performing pretty poorly,
and it looks like Honda is going to get away
with some of that because they have an argument,
which is sound, that these systems aren't perfect.
I don't think we've seen the perfect automatic
emergency braking system created yet. I think
you can make them a lot closer to perfect by
using additional sensors and by focusing a lot
on the detection and response parts of automatic
emergency braking. I think there's a couple of
technical points worth noting here. One is that
it is a fact that if you increase the sensitivity
of the system that underlies the automatic emergency
braking, you will get more false positives. And
what we're really talking about are false positives.
But the other thing that I think is very interesting
and revealing about this is that people who endorse
using AI to run cars say that while the AI is
constantly learning, it's going to make everything
wonderful. Well, you know, there's a jillion
examples of false positives associated with automatic
emergency braking, as well as appropriate positives.
So why is it if AI has got all this great capability
for driving cars that it is unable to assist
the automatic emergency braking to remove the
false positives? I think there's a lesson there
for the people who promote the AI use in cars.
It's really severely limited in what it can really
do in the real world. Yeah. And will AI hallucinate
objects that aren't there too? I guess that's
another question. Or are the AI hallucinations
responsible for some of these false positives
that are causing the phantom breaking? There's
kind of a lesson here in trade -offs and the
introduction of new technology. When airbags
first came into cars, there were a lot of deaths
and injuries that were caused to children and
smaller occupants who were in the front seat
who were contacted by a deploying airbag that
was so forceful that it injured them or killed
them versus protecting them. And, you know, NHTSA
ultimately had to step in and craft new updating
their airbag regulations to address that problem.
And, you know, and other things like encouraging
parents to move children to the backseat. But,
you know, what ultimately what it ultimately
took to protect people there was NHTSA stepping
in and putting forth strong regulations that
prevented, you know, some of the cheaper and
less effective and overpowered airbag systems
for being used. I think they need to do the same
thing here with automatic emergency braking.
You've got to set a, this is NHTSA's job. You
have to set a minimum standard for these systems
performance. Right now, I don't know that the
new automatic emergency braking rule that doesn't
come into play until 2029 has sufficient. tests
on phantom braking to ensure that doesn't happen.
They basically have two tests. One involves a
vehicle going over a steel plate and one between
two other vehicles. And that's it. They don't
really go beyond that. I don't think that's enough.
I think we're going to continue to see false
positives impact the braking systems on vehicles
until something more is done to address those
situations. Michael, so if I buy a car and it
says, hey, has automatic emergency braking, Is
there just a big asterisk next to that? Like,
should it actually say may contain automatic
emergency? So it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't
mean anything until 2029 when an actual formal
definition for what automatic emergency braking
should be comes into effect. That's crazy. And
something else that doesn't mean what it claims
to mean is Tesla. You've got to be talking about
Tesla. Of course, I'm going into my gas light.
My gas light is going to be Tesla. An article
in Electrek talking about how Tesla launches
robo -taxi in Houston and Dallas with tiny geo
-fences. So, I'm going to quote. As reported
in March, Tesla's Austin operation still relies
on only a handful of unsupervised vehicles. Bullshit.
Somewhere between 4 and 12 Model Ys operating
without a human safety monitor out of a total
fleet of roughly 80 vehicles. Most of those not
are operating at the same time. The remaining
cars still carry safety monitors in the driver's
seat and all of all... Vehicles are remotely
supervised by Tesla staff. So that first sentence
still relies only on a handful of unsupervised
vehicles. Ends the paragraph with every single
one of them are remotely supervised. Okay, well,
that's a little cognitive dissonance there, but
let's continue. Expanding new cities while safety
concerns remain unresolved is a bold choice.
Tesla, oh, it's Tesla. Tesla has reported 15
crash incidents to NHTSA since its Austin launch.
with crash rates approximately four to nine times
worse than human drivers, depending on the benchmark
used. A 1 July 2025 crash was quietly upgraded
months later to include a hospitalization, a
detail Tesla never publicly disclosed. So this
is just more of Tesla's horseshit. And I mean,
electric kind of - Is there an earnings call
this week? Oh yeah, there's an earnings call.
There is an earnings call. It's tomorrow too.
Damn it, am I recording today? I mean, it's just
like roll out the bullshit the week before the
earnings call. Yeah, so them saying, hey, we've
expanded to other cities is just more nonsense.
I think Elon said by the end of 2025, by the
end of 2020, there'd be a million robo -taxes
on the road. There are currently - Zero robo
-taxis are some Model Ys that have supervised
people either locally or remotely. Every single
one of them is supervised. And he promised 500
vehicles in Austin and over a thousand in the
Bay Area by the end of 2025. Not even close.
So this is just more Tesla bullshit. I don't
know why. People, I don't know why investment
banks, why do you keep funneling the light? The
big, I don't get it. Hey, the stock keeps going
up. It doesn't matter what Elon says. I guess,
I guess. Unfortunately, I mean, later in the
article, I mean, again, big, big shout out to
Waymo's PR team because even Electric says. The
most striking context for today's announcement
is that Waymo has been operating in both Houston
and Dallas since February 2026 with fully driverless
vehicles, no safety monitors, no chase cars,
no remote supervision required. Is that true?
That's not true. Come on, Fred. You're better
than that. Clearly there's remote supervision
going. It is Fred Lambert again. So I'm going
to give 88 % of my gaslight to Elon. I know it's
easy. And 12 % Fred Lambert. That's my mix. That's
my match. Fred Perkins, you are leaned in close
to the microphone. You look excited. Are you
ready to go? Excited? Well, never mind. I went
back from my gaslight to an old favorite, the
Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association. And
it's run by a guy named Jeff Fowler. And quoting
from their website. The promise of AVs is profound.
At the heart of their impact is the potential
to make our roads significantly safer. The U
.S. Department of Transportation has confirmed
that human behavior, such as impaired or distracted
driving, is the overwhelming cause of motor vehicle
crashes. AVs, by contrast, do not drive impaired
or distracted, offering a safer alternative.
Close quote. Well, it's almost funny, you know,
it's remarkable how ignorant this guy is or how
insistent he is on bullshitting senators and
everyone else in the public. So one example of
impairment is the utility power outage in San
Francisco where every single Waymo ended up stopping
in the middle of the roads or by the side of
the road. So impairment clearly is something
that applies to. autonomous vehicles. There's
numerous videos available that talk about Waymos
being distracted by confusing road signs or instructions
by remote humans in their loop. For example,
there was an example of a Waymo that confronted
a school bus in Austin and it queried the remote
user, the remote assistance, of whether or not
it should proceed. And the remote assistant said,
sure, go ahead. So Waymo will say that the car
is always in control and all the decisions about
proceeding are made by the onboard computers.
Yet here's an example of the onboard computers
being distracted by the instructions it received
from a remote human far away in Michigan who
gave it an incorrect instruction. The other thing
about this is that DOT studies have never confirmed
that human behavior is the overwhelming cause
of motor vehicle crashes. There's no such study
that's completely made up due to a misinterpretation
of a study that DOT did. The statement conflates
aspiration with reality. Those are different
things. What you want to happen. versus what
actually happens. And among the things that AVs
do not do is they don't hurt, they don't bleed,
they don't care, and they're not programmable
to optimize operations relevant to hurting, bleeding,
or caring. It goes on to say at the federal level,
there should be tests for detection and response
to relevant road users, including vulnerable
road users, likely to be present and in proximity
of the ADS. And then the ODD, including surface
streets. Well, vulnerable road users likely to
be present is insufficient. It should be vulnerable
road users who are plausibly expected to be present,
not just likely. He goes on, level three systems
transfer of control back to the human driver
when necessary. Well, that's undefined. And it's
easy to say, but hard to do, and especially hard
to establish that. at all corners of the ODD,
and also if the allowed extension is beyond the
ODD. Another item, a level four system's ability
to incorporate SAE J3016 definition of achieving
a minimal risk condition. J3016 is not a safety
standard. In fact, it's not a standard of any
kind. It's just a document that defines the taxonomy.
And the MRC that's defined therein has never
been vetted for safety, is not apparently a safe
harbor candidate. This is a terrible statement
to say to legislators that you need to make the
vehicles conform to a statement that's not a
standard, that's not a safety standard, and has
never been shown to be safe. He also says it
should be tested for the ADS's ability to detect
the limits of its ODD. and respond correctly,
e .g. not drive outside of its ODD, except in
acceptable or reasonable circumstances. Well,
that sounds pretty good, except if it's limited
to the ODD except when it's not, when is it limited?
And how about transient or emergency limits that
are imposed by authorities that are not part
of the ODD? ODD does not include any level of
control by the local authorities. So that's something
that has to be added in. And finally, he says
the ADS's ability to detect and appropriately
respond to active emergency vehicles should be
tested. Well, that's good. But what about the
environment, the transit to emergency activity
scene? Like we've seen Waymo blocking ambulance
on its way to a mass shooting scene. Or an emergency
vehicle without visible lights. Other emergency
responses. So, qualification tests are a good
idea, but they need to be vetted by all stakeholders,
not just something the industry pulls out of
the air or pulls out of something else. Anyway,
that's my gaslight for this week. It goes back
to our friends at the Autonomous Vehicle Industry
Association. If these are so good, why can't
you provide a factual basis for saying they're
good rather than just making shit up? Making
shit up. It's what we do. Michael, gaslighters.
All right. So last week, I give it. This week,
I take it away from NHTSA. They announced their
action plan under the current administration
at Lifesavers Conference in Baltimore. I believe
that was in the last couple of days this week.
Put a little page on their website about it.
I just have to point this out because, you know,
they go through some of the things we talk about
a good bit. Obviously, they've been trying to
cozy up to law enforcement since the start of
the administration before, you know, Jonathan
Morrison was even in there. I believe statements
that was releasing basically highlighted how
they're going to cooperate with law enforcement
to prevent crashes. You know, that works to an
extent. It's never going to. completely work
to solve a lot of the problems we have. But moving
past that, you know, another big part of their
announcements, you know, are reducing excessive
speeding, preventing impaired driving. The one
thing that I really like here, the pre -hospital
blood transfusion programs that I talked about
last week, I'll ignore for now, and reducing
distracted driving. Now, Critically, in all three
of those areas, the agency is citing working
with law enforcement, for instance, in reducing
excessive speeding. They're saying we're going
to work with law enforcement and allow for the
use of automated camera systems, that we're going
to support the smart use of automated camera
systems to augment the law enforcement response.
When they talk about impaired driving, they talk
about... Preventing, you know, recidivism, which
means they're going to support like the alcohol
interlock devices that go on vehicles after someone's
been arrested for drunk driving. And, you know,
in the in the occupant or the distracted driving
side, they again kind of go back to how the states
are going to prevent distracted driving. What
they don't mention here and the reason that they're
getting my gas like this week is there are, you
know, and I think this is evidence of just how
much power the auto industry has over at NHTSA
in certain administrations. Right. They're not
mentioning the three really important technologies
here that could be implemented to prevent all
these things at a much better level than police
can do it by putting the technologies in the
cars that. Eliminate speeding. You can't speed
anymore. You can't drink and drive anymore because
there's a sensor, a dad sensor, that's going
to prevent you from doing so. You can't drive
distracted anymore because there's driver monitoring
that sees you doing it and won't let you drive
while you're doing it, right? These are all things
that can be put in cars to prevent these kind
of behaviors, to drastically lower the deaths
and injuries we see on our roads every year.
And here is NHTSA, who should be promoting those
technologies, completely ignoring them in its
action plan. on its pathways to safer streets.
For that reason, they get my gaslight of the
week, maybe the month. Wow. I mean, last week,
you're praising them. This week, you're kicking
them down. I mean, you know, it's... We have
a love -hate relationship. This is not a healthy
dynamic you have with them. No, it is not. The
winner of this week's gaslight is this company
that I bought this stopwatch from. It's been
$15, and you need a stopwatch, and I can't even
read the display. It's just too dark. That's
the winner of the Gaslight. S -K -M -E -I. Maker
of a crappy $15 watch. That's what you get from
buying on Amazon. I just needed a cheap watch.
Okay, I needed something anyway. So we've talked
about Tesla and Waymo, so let's go into more
Tesla. Hey, wait a minute. Before you do that,
in New York, aren't you gifted with gentlemen
on the streets who have numerous Rolexes attached
to their trench coat? I think they're very attractive
prices. I would go outside. Oh, that's right.
I forgot about that. Yeah, come on. Take it back.
It's below 60 degrees today. I'm not going out
there. That's insane. Oh, my God. Yeah, I know.
I'm thinking about putting on more clothes. I'll
take it back. Okay, so Tesla. It seems the owners
of Tesla, the Kool -Aid they've been drinking
for the last 15 years is starting to wear off.
Either that or maybe their tolerance is getting
too high and they're like, wait a second, man.
Have we been conned? So this is an article from
the Wall Street Journal titled Car Owners Are
Revolting Over Tesla's Self -Driving Promises.
Just to remind listeners, the current year is
2026. Just want to let you know this is not an
article from a decade ago when they should have
caught on. Quoting, when Tom LoSavio bought his
Tesla Model S in 2017, he thought he was buying
a car that would one day drive itself. I can
let that slide. 2017, look, the world was different.
COVID wasn't happening yet. You know, things
were, it was a different world. It's nine years
later. Further down, in the nine years since,
LoSavio said, it has become clear. Tesla took
him for a ride. That should have happened in
2018. He is the lead plaintiff in a class action
lawsuit that alleges that Tesla charged customers
thousands of dollars in pricey upgrades for a
product that didn't and still doesn't exist.
And won't. And will never exist. I mean, this
is just it's a fascinating article that that
basically it's taken these people nine years
to be like. Is this going to happen? Oh, I don't
think this is going to happen. No, no. Elon's
he's like he's going to replace all the computers
and all the sensors in our car and he's going
to personally do it. He's going to. Oh, he's
not going to do that. Oh, well, he's going to
get his lesser saw. Oh, that's not going to happen
either. Oh, I just gave this guy 10 grand and
an interest free loan to get nothing. He could
have been just, you know, I mean, I don't I I
hope these this case moves forward. I hope they
just don't settle out of court and be like, hey,
they gave me back my 10 grand. Because it's a
lot more than that he's taken from you at this
point. Yeah. And this is a class action in California
right now. I think there's, you know, there's
like 3000 people involved in this. I don't know
if it's been limited to California. Some class
actions can be limited to the state. So who knows
what's going to happen here? I mean, I think
it's pretty clear to all of us that. These older
Teslas and even the ones coming off the line
today are never going to be fully autonomous.
They're always going to require very close supervision
that we would recommend against doing in the
first place. Maybe worth noting also that this
business model that Tesla came up with of lying,
cheating, and charging money for things that
they're never going to deliver is the business
model that every other manufacturer of an EV
is following. Because they want the same kind
of returns that Tesla is getting on its EV for
their own EV offerings. The only way to do that
is to also absorb the other parts of the business
model that Tesla is putting out there. So, you
know, beware. This business model, based upon
lying and cheating, is spreading worldwide. I'm
not sure I follow that. Wait, AVs or EVs? EVs,
electric vehicles. I don't think any of them
are pulling a Tesla. Anyone else? No. No, not
to this extent. No. I mean, there are, if you
look at like, you know, for instance, look at,
you know, Rivian, I would say is probably someone
you could point to that is, you know, when I
believe Rivian is. Doing some of the things Tesla's
doing, not other things. Lucid? Lucid's much
closer. Yeah, Lucid's a little closer. I would
really look at the ones who are, you know, Rivian's
integrating LiDAR into its vehicles. So they're
taking a different tack than Tesla. They at least
seem to be trying to put the type of vision systems
into the vehicles that can allow for safer operation.
There is a lot of hype in that industry. But
then also you've got traditional manufacturers
that are, you know, struggling just to get a
workable EV out on the road that don't really
seem to be following the Tesla path. Or Blue
Cruise, which, you know, we've seen doesn't work
that well. All right. Let's go to the next con
artist. Waymo, the Tennessean. This is an article
from the Tennessean. Folks, I know you've been
like, I've been meaning to catch up on the latest
issue of the Tennessean. And now is your chance.
Here's a good reason. I'm going to quote. From
it, because this one threw me for a loop. Waymo
maps new areas with incredible detail from lane
markers to stop signs to curbs and crosswalks,
according to the company website. Waymos use
artificial intelligence and real -time sensor
data to make driving decisions. Huh? So what
is it? What? Huh? Because the article basically
has a bunch of videos of people on social media
showing Waymos going into areas where it says
no cars allowed and the Waymo going, fuck you.
I'm going there to see some kids I can aim for.
Or driving over asphalt and it's forcing construction
workers to stop their job they're paid to do
to babysit Waymos. Waymos, that's a good business
model. I get free assistance from municipal workers.
And so it's an entertaining article for that,
but I... I'm confused. So Waymo, is it relying
on HD maps or is it relying on AI to make the,
who's making the driving decision here? The Waymo
computer? What is the Waymo computer? Are they
trying to obfuscate that so that no one knows
that there is no liability, right? That could
be that. If you can't trace it to who's or what
is making a decision, then how do you assign
blame for legal purposes? Yeah. Further down
the article, I'm going to quote my favorite line.
Autonomous vehicles like the cars in the Waymo
fleet may even be safer than human drivers in
some ways. Maybe when they're parked and turned
off. Yeah. I mean, in some ways, maybe that is
safer than a human sitting in there with the
heat on. And I don't know. And then the next
quote, if an autonomous vehicle is involved in
a crash, the traffic division, this is the Nashville
police, will be notified to investigate. Waymo
has also provided an emergency response guide
to law enforcement, which includes a toll -free
24 -hour telephone hotline. Okay, so, Fred, I'm
a Waymo, and I run over a dog and smash into
a building and whatnot, and so you're the cop
on the scene. Good thing you got that toll -free
number. How is your day going? It's going fine
so far, but I had to chase the Waymo into a piggly
-wiggly parking lot. And I wasn't happy about
that. But, you know, Waymo is clearly speaking
out of both sides of its mouth because when it
talks about remote assistance, it says the computer
is completely in charge. The remote assistance
is just providing suggestions. Well, if it's
just providing suggestions, how is it relevant
to the end -to -end AI that's supposedly driving
the Waymo? If it's end -to -end AI, it should
be impervious. to suggestions from the remote
assistant, right? Because there's no statistical
basis for it. So I don't know if you're the police
officer. Number one, the state doesn't give you
the authority to write a ticket for them. Number
two, there's no human being who can get the ticket.
And number three, you're in a piggly, wiggly
parking lot trying to figure out what the hell
to do. And there's nobody answering the phone.
A tough situation. Michael, as my attorney of
record. I get pulled over by a cop. Can I just
hand him an 800 number and say, hey, you just
call this for assistance? Obviously not. You're
fired. Not even if you're a sovereign citizen.
And with that, let's jump into the towel of Fred.
We have heard. Thank you, Anthony. We have heard
for a long time that it's very important for
the autonomous vehicles to operate on the streets
without restriction because. Any restrictions
will inhibit innovation, right? We've heard that
over and over again, and states are enshrining
that in law. So, Anthony, have you got something
called a cell phone? I do. Want to see it? Got
little navigation anchors and nautical things
in the back. Michael, how about you? You have
a cell phone? Yeah. Does everybody in the country
have a cell phone? So 40 years ago, nobody had
a cell phone. It was very new. And over the last
40 years, there's been tremendous innovation
in cell phones. It increased better batteries.
It went from Nikon to lithium -ion, better processors,
better cameras. All that happened. Well, so here's
a short list of some of the regulations that
apply. The FCC regulates radio frequency exposure,
electromagnetic compatibility, radio spectrum
usage, rejection of noise, absorption of noise.
The FDA is responsible for consulting with other
federal agencies on techniques and programs for
testing and evaluating radiation, collecting,
analyzing, and making available scientific information
on the nature and extent of the hazards and control
of electronic product radiation. There are 1G.
2G, 3G, 4G, 4G LTE, 5G. There's something called
code division, multiple access, time division,
multiple access, TDMA. There's even FDMA, which
is orthogonal division, excuse me, frequency
division, multiple access is FDMA. Something
called orthogonal division, multiple access,
ODMA. There's an NBLT, narrow band, excuse me,
IOT, narrow band, Internet of Things, there's
an LTE -M, there's a 1910 .268 telecommunications
standard from OSHA, ANSI, USEMC, C63 .272021,
IEEE, ANSI. You get the idea. There's tons of
regulations that are associated with cell phones.
None of them has inhibited cell phone development
or proliferation. So why should we believe that
regulations would in any way inhibit the development
and proliferation of self -driving vehicles?
The answer is that's just another line of bullshit
that they throw out there. And in fact, the regulations
need to be put in place now to protect the public.
And they would also benefit the AV industry because
it provides a fixed reference point for the development
of these vehicles that people can understand.
And that would help assure the investment people
want to make in them. It goes on GBT, 18288 -2000,
blah, blah, blah. And, you know, another example
is the airplanes that you fly in every day, except,
well, at least we could for a long time. But
anyway, there's a whole set of federal regulations,
all federal legislation regulations, part 25,
title 14, chapter, subchapter C, part 25. which
are airworthiness standards for transport category
airplanes, there's been tremendous development
in airplanes similarly over the last 50 or 60
years. So I'm going to jump in real quick. So
you're saying that autonomous vehicles, they
claim they don't need regulations and whatnot
because it's going to interrupt things. Does
the automobile, the standard automobile, does
that have to follow any sort of regulation? Because
I've seen them change dramatically in my lifetime.
They do have to follow regulations. Federal Motor
Vehicle Safety Standards are high on the list,
but they also have to follow a long list of standards
associated with the electronics that are in them.
The communication standards, the computer standards.
It would go on as long as your arm. So a tremendous
number of regulations. So the idea that the regulations
inhibit development of these complex systems
is just nonsense. It desperately needed to protect
the public and also to protect the industry.
And Michael, so all of these regulations that
the auto industry is under, has there been any
single one that they haven't fought against?
I mean, you'll occasionally see them not fight
against, for instance, if NHTSA came up with
a regulation right now to allow for... the adaptive
driving beams to be used in the United States,
they wouldn't object to that because it's something
they support, right? So there are some regulations
that support it. But no, typically any safety
regulation, they're going to push back against
really hard. And at the same time, they will
be asking for current regulations on the book
to be... weakened, right? So there's a profound
deregulatory effort by manufacturers and their,
you know, minions in D .C. to get these rules
weakened or reduced or eliminated completely.
You know, we're seeing that going on right now,
which, you know, in my opinion is, you know,
simply another way in which they're attempting
to essentially control the market, you know.
to prevent them from, they're rigging the system
to make vehicles ultimately less safe, but more
profitable from their end. Right. Their argument
is that those regulations need to be relaxed
because they're inhibiting innovation. And what
we've seen with the aircraft and the telecommunications
industry is that that's complete nonsense. There's
just no evidence at all that a regulated environment
for developing complex technology. will inhibit
the development or proliferation of that technology.
Yeah, and particularly if NHTSA is sticking to
setting what, doing what it's supposed to do,
setting minimum standards to ensure a base layer
of safety. You know, that shouldn't hinder innovation.
You know, I often hear the agency say things
like, you know, they want their rules to be technology.
technologically neutral, so they're not really
choosing a winner. But in certain situations,
I think that safety demands it. I would put Tesla's
use of cameras only to operate full self -driving
as one of those. I think the entire industry
and all of the safety community agree that you
need more different and better sensors and computing
systems to carry out those tasks safely. So that's
one example. So can you guys right now, on the
record, identify every single auto manufacturer
that has gone out of business because of federal
safety rules. Which one? Oh, yeah. Takata. Takata.
Okay, they're not an auto manufacturer. But see,
ultimately, they didn't go out of business because
of the safety rules. They went out of business
because they were violating the safety rules.
They were producing bombs. Yeah. Okay. No, but
like, so there's been no auto manufacturer, not
components that have gone out of business. None
of their business have suffered because they've
been required to put in seatbelts. Right. And
that was arguments. Yeah. They, they made those
bullshit arguments. Right. I love this. This
is my favorite towel of all time. I, I, I seriously,
this is, this lays it out perfectly. Like the.
Yeah, everything, you know, cell phones, highly
regulated. You know, every few months, there's
a brand new, there's a foldable one, there's
rollable ones, there's, you know, lickable ones.
Probably someone's working on that. I don't know.
But yeah, and these auto companies are already
under a whole bunch of federal safety regulations.
Not really, right? Well, they all need airbags.
There's a very small number of, yeah, minimal
number of safety regulations compared to all
the stuff that goes into a car and safety. Right,
but none of them have, it hasn't hurt any of
their business models. I think, Rob, you win
this week's towel, Fred. I mean, it might hurt,
you know, it might hurt their Christmas bonus
occasionally, right? Right, right. They'll curse
Ralph Nader. Speaking of that, let's jump into
recalls. How's that sound? Hey, this week, I
mean, why don't we just call this segment Ford?
That's right. First one up, Ford, 1 .300, 1 .3
.92 million. I mean, I can't, it's a number so
big, my brain can't even pronounce it. These
are the 2015 to 2017 F -150. An unexpected downshift
to a lower gear may cause an abrupt wheel speed
reduction for short duration, which in some situations
could cause the rear tires to slide into the
vehicle speed slows. This could result in lost
vehicle control, increasing the risk of crash.
Oh, Ford. I mean, that's a lot of cars. Yeah,
basically, I mean, you know, I think you're driving
down the road in one gear and it downshifts.
into second gear, which obviously a problem is
going to cause your vehicle to slow down, potentially
put you at risk of a crash. I think that Ford
is still coming up with a fix here or trying
to figure out a way to implement it because it
looks like that owners won't be able to get a
remedy until middle to late July. I want to point
out that if you are downshifting and there's
enough compression to cause your rear wheels
to slide, you are putting a hell of a strain
on your entire drive system, right up through
the universal joints, the drive shaft, transmission,
engine. You're really working the hell out of
your own vehicle. So this is a catastrophic failure.
This is something that should have been detected
in testing, and I can't really say that it wasn't,
but it seems like if you had done... the actual
qualification or validation of your design, this
would have popped up and never should have been
on the road. On Ford's behalf, this is a new
vehicle they've just introduced. It has very
little traction in the marketplace. They sell
very few of these. So it's like a niche product.
You're talking about these 10 -year -old F -150s,
right? Yeah, no, I'm kidding. It's sarcasm, but
yeah. Anyway, next up, Honda. 440 ,830 vehicles,
the 2018 to 2022 Honda Odyssey. The name sounds
exciting, but it's just a minivan. The SRS control
logic for the second and third rows contain insufficient
deployment threshold margin. I don't understand
what any of this means. This is the side bag,
the side curtain airbags can inadvertently deploy
when... So what we were talking about before
is you increase the sensitivity of your... of
the system, you're going to get more false positives.
This is another example of that. So what they
did is they set the limit on the vibration that's
going to cause deployment too low. And so now
they're going over potholes and the airbags are
deploying. Yeah, that's scary. Hopefully, sneezes
don't trigger it. But it looks like they're going
to. reprogram the electronic control unit for
the airbag system or replace it. So I don't know.
I guess it depends on the model, what they're
going to do there, or maybe, I don't know. It's
not clear exactly how they're making that determination.
You know, it's interesting that, I don't know.
It's interesting that they implemented a fix.
You know, they note here that the they implemented
the correction into production at the start of
the 2023 model year so they knew there was a
problem here right is that is that how that's
reading that's what it looks like yeah yeah i
mean that's not good honda you know should you
know if you knew about it in 2023 model year
and you started implementing it on june 3rd 2022
shouldn't you be fined by nizza for every date
between that and your announcement of the recall
i think so nizza what's your reply yeah next
up kia 141 032 vehicles the 2022 to 2026 kia
carnival and what we've learned if you've got
a fun name for a vehicle odds are it's a minivan
uh this is a Expected production deviation. The
high pressure crossover fuel pipe nuts may loosen
over time, resulting in a fuel leak. And that
can increase the risk of fire. That's not good.
If you smell fuel or an illumination check engine
light, get out of the car. So hopefully this
is just they're going to tighten a nut. Yeah,
it sounds like they're just going to tighten
the nut. They've got a new torque specification.
Of course, it's. for some reason, taking them
until June to get this going. And this applies
not just to the Kia Carnivals, but also to the
Hyundai model. Let's check it real quick to see
if its name is as fun as the Kia. It is not.
Next up is Hyundai. What is it? The Genesis.
Ah, no. Yeah, this is the Phil Collins tribute
car. And this is the same recall. Right. So just
on the Genesis. Yeah, the Genesis G80 and G90.
But I do have a suggestion for owners. If you
look at your steering wheel carefully, And it
has the word Kia embossed anywhere. Try to get
a new vehicle. Shameful. Some other company.
Their EVs are apparently pretty good. And I drove
a rental. Kia, it was a fun car to drive. You
know, I did too. I think it was a rental Hyundai
a couple of years back. It wasn't too bad, although
it felt like a spaceship on the inside. I think
they're getting a lot of sales from their snazzy,
snazzy interiors. You guys are arguing with me.
It's pretty bad. Off of my ego. Rent a Kia that
felt like a modern take on a Buick. Like it had
that, it was like, oh, if a Buick was... Came
into the future. It had that. Okay. You lost
me at Buick there. But anyway. Anyway. Anyway.
Last one. Chrysler. Huh. Didn't know they were
still around. 6 ,605 vehicles. The 2026 Ram 2500
pickup. They are not following FMVSS 126, which
requires electronic stability control to be active
while driving. And SCCM with an internal fault
may result in loss of the electronic stability
control. Oh, that's not good. Not good. But recall
fix is coming soon for owners. Looks like early
May. They'll hear about that. They're going to
replace the SCCM. Anthony, what's an SCCM again?
That's the sugar coated caramel marshmallows.
Sounds good. It sounds it's it's not diabetic
friendly. I don't know, Fred. What's the SCCM?
The serial computer control module? It's the
steering control column module. There you go.
It's got an internal fault that can disable electronic
stability control. That's bad. Especially in
big trucks. Yeah. And with that, listeners, thanks
for going to autosafety .org, clicking on Donate,
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your friends. And bye. Bye -bye. For more information
visit www .autosafety .org