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. Yeah, welcome to the
Center for Auto Safety podcast. We're going to
talk about the nutritional benefits of tofu.
which is neither here nor there. But today is
Wednesday, May 20th. And if you're eating tofu,
just don't do it while driving the vehicle. It
makes a good breakfast scramble. That's for sure.
Again, but if you're eating it while driving,
you could become the breakfast scramble. Yeah,
no eating while driving. Yeah, don't eat while
driving. We can all agree on that, right? Okay,
good. Let's talk about the wonderful world of
car ads. Now, I love a good car ad because I'm
going up a mountain. I remember GMC had an ad
years ago where they had like an SUV on the top
of like some rock formation. Like, clearly the
only way I got this vehicle up here was the helicopter.
I mean, that sounds like every pickup truck ad
ever made. They're the best. They're totally
realistic. They make me feel like a real man
who's never eaten tofu. But the Insurance Institute
for Highway Safety. Has an article, more car
ads promote vehicle performance despite dangers
of speed. And it talks about how the broadcasters
should be, you know, following some sort of regulations
and not promoting this stuff. So I'm going to
quote from this article. ABC standards were more
specific, stating that safe and lawful driving
practices should be depicted at all times. But
there was no mention of sticking to reasonable
speeds and their examples of safe driving. Similarly,
NBCUniversal required that advertisers portray
compliance with safety standards precautions,
calling it the use of seatbelts, but ignoring
speed. So, this is why you see a bunch of cars
speeding down the highway, doing, I don't know,
K -turns and things like that, but they're wearing
a seatbelt. That makes sense. Okay, I guess.
Yeah, so what sells cars is speed and horsepower.
Yeah. The hat's very misleading because even,
you know, well, the speed will kill you, number
one. But number two, the horsepower that they
talk about is really not available to anybody
who's driving a car. Because if you ever did
get 500 horsepower coming through your rear wheels,
they'd be spinning wildly and you'd be completely
out of control. And the actual vehicle that you
might be driving going down the highway. will
consume about 25, 30 horsepower, maybe 50 horsepower
going up a reasonable grade, unless you've got
the pickup truck. It was, you know, towing a
whole tractor trailer full of concrete up the
side of Mount Everest or something. Okay, then
you can use it. That was a pretty good pickup
truck. Yeah, that sound, I think we have a new
theme song. I practiced that. I mean, the IHST
is interesting because it... They looked at a
lot of ads. And so they basically tracked a period
from 2018 to 2022, five -year period, in which,
you know, deaths linked to speeding and aggressive
driving were going up. And at the same time,
these ads were going up. Now, I know it's difficult
to establish, you know, causation between that
kind of thing. Just like, you know, there are
lots of video games out there and movies that
show the same thing. And there's kind of a there's
responsibilities here that, you know, you mentioned
the networks, Anthony, and, you know, their policies
on this. You know, there's there's responsibility
that I think should be put on the manufacturers
there to not put the give these ads to the network
to show to America in the first place. But. That's
not the law in the United States. I guess there
are some free speech, commercial speech concerns
involved there. In the United Kingdom, you can't
advertise cars like this. You can't show them
doing unsafe things in advertisements on TV.
You can still make the movies and the video games
and all the other stuff. But so it's interesting
how different countries approach these things.
Obviously, the UK doesn't have. the kind of speed
-related fatality rate that we do in the United
States. So, you know, maybe there's something
to this. And it's something the Center has tried
to work on for decades. I mean, we used to participate
in an award ceremony each year for the most irresponsible
advertising. We worked on a documentary called
Power Trip with Myron Levin in the last couple
of years, which is essentially on this subject.
You know, it shows a lot of those ads and really
explores, you know, the kind of the legal and
the social and cultural issues that are going
on there. But, you know, this is something that's
so obvious. We see it all the time. on television
and in other media. And, you know, obviously
it's having some sort of impact, particularly
on people who are maybe a little more impressionable
by images of cool and, you know, masculinity
and other things that show up in these ads. So
it is a contributor to the way that some people
drive. And it's not a good contributor, right?
Are these ads effective with women? Because they
look like, you know, ads aimed at teenage boys.
I don't know. Matthew McConaughey? I don't know.
But he's not riding up a mountainside. He's just
sitting there looking weird. He's usually looking
cool in a Lincoln, right? No one looks cool in
a Lincoln. I'm sorry. I think they've even given
up on that. I haven't seen those ads in a long
time. I've got to get back to gullibility with
the horsepower thing because all you're really
doing with a lot of horsepower under your hood
is carrying a whole big block of cast iron around
with you everywhere you go. You know, your car
is not designed to produce maximum horsepower
for more than one or two seconds. And if you
think you're going to do that, you're going to
blow out your bearings and your cooling system.
The difference between a car design and a truck
design is that the truck design has bearings
and cooling system that are adapted for a very
high work factor. associated with the horsepower,
right? So you can go around at 200 horsepower
all day long and you won't blow anything up.
Your car is not doing that. So when you buy a
car based upon its horsepower claim, all you're
doing is really showing your gullibility. You
don't need it. It costs you a lot of money. At
the time of purchase, it costs you a lot of money.
It also costs you a lot because you have to drag
it around everywhere you go. My pet peeve. End
of rant. If you're not gullible, go to autosafety
.org and click on Donate. Or if you want to know
what horsepower really means, click on Donate.
And Fred will come to your house personally with
a horse and show you how much it can pull. Right,
Fred? I think that was one of the earlier towels,
in fact. I don't remember exactly, but... It's
a consistent theme. Yeah. Fred has still not
showed up at our winner's house with a horse.
I mean, it was me who won. I mean, I put my thumb
on the scale. I've never ridden a horse. I'm
a fully modern guy. Wow. Anyway, let's move on.
So this is a fascinating article here. This is
an MSN from Autoblog. And it seems that in Euro
NCAP, which is their new car assessment program,
that a lot of manufacturers don't care about
getting a five star rating anymore. And we'd
always talk about how it's kind of perfunctory
in the US. that everybody gets it because the
standard really hasn't changed. It's pretty weak.
And so almost, almost everyone is right. That's
the real problem. So it means nothing. So, whereas
in Europe, these people are like, Hey, I'm not
gonna, I don't care about hitting that. I'll
go for a four or I'll go for a three. Because
the point is that according from this article,
this one company, Dacia, they're targeted three
stars wanting to remain competitive at the four
affordable end of the market. So basic safety
is you got to be able to afford it is what the
takeaway is. But then further down, quoting,
Euro NCAP has highlighted the growing use of
dual ratings where certain vehicles achieve different
safety scores depending on the trim level or
optional safety pack fitted. Honda and Kia follow
this approach with the Honda HR -V and CR -V
only achieving five -star scores in the higher
spec configurations, while the Kia K4 received
a four -star rating in its base form. So when
you see these ads like, hey, five star rating,
there's a it's got to be a big asterisk being
like, well, I hope you got the upgraded comes
with brakes package. Yeah, I guess there should
be. I mean, I don't know how these are. You know,
these are all Euro and cap ratings. How this
is playing out in America is very different,
I think, because everybody gets so many of everybody
can get five stars. Now, if you get four stars,
God forbid you get three stars. You know, it
looks like your quality has dropped off a cliff
because the tests are old. Manufacturers have
learned how to best comply with the test procedures.
They've got their head wrapped around these tests
that have been sitting there for 15, 20 years
or more, right? But at Euro NCAP, they're constantly
introducing a range of new tests around, you
know, crash avoidance features. You know, NCAP
right now in the United States is still catching
up with automatic emergency braking. Meanwhile,
NCAP and Euro already has those tests and they're
rating vehicles based on them. So that's one
reason you'll see, I think, an NCAP test, the
base model vehicles getting four stars while
the top ones get five because those top ones
have that additional layer of... crash avoidance
tech and other features that they're rated highly
for. You know, Euro NCAP is even rating for things
like we've discussed around, you know, your dashboard
configuration, whether you've got too many buttons,
that kind of thing, a distraction, things that
the United States NCAP is not. And so I would
say it's, you know, maybe this strategy makes
sense for some companies in the European market,
but it certainly wouldn't here. given the very
different states of our NCAP programs and the
extent of testing and rating that go on. Michael,
how many cars are tested under NCAP during this
current administration? It varies every year.
I think at some point it's been over 100. You
know, I think it's about 30 vehicles now. I think
they tested 37 last year, which is... I think
less than IHS is now testing under some of the
tests with IHS that I think we would prefer to
be used by NHTSA. So it's interesting that, in
fact, the NCAPS budget, I want to say, is around
$6 million, maybe $5 million per year when you
start adding up the cost because NHTSA goes and
blind buys the vehicle. They have to buy, you
know, 40 cars, say. You add up the cost of all
those cars and, you know, you're getting close
to a large percentage of your budget, which should
also be used to enhance testing and do all these
other things. So, you know, one of our major
challenges in the United States with NCAP is
funding. And that's something that I don't know
that the agency and Congress have completely
gotten their head around. disappointing when
you see just how well in -cap the United States
started out and how it's floundered in the last
couple of decades. Could NHTSA file a complaint
saying they were unjustly prosecuted under the
Biden administration to get access to a billion
-dollar -plus slush fund? You know, is that the
way the world's working now? Apparently. I don't
want them to, no. But you know what? It's hard
to comment on that without seeing how it plays
out. I would love for NHTSA to have a $1 .8 billion
safety slush fund. Yes. Yes, I would. I think
we all would. So when NHTSA buys these cars,
does trim level, do you have any idea in the
U .S. testing of this, does that have an impact?
Or is it just the U .S. model is just so weak
that everyone gets a trophy? I think NHTSA tries
to test the base models because they give them
a better idea of, you know, because that's what
most people are going to buy typically. And it
gives them a better idea of how the vehicles,
you know, are performing without all the added
enhancements and other things that come with
some of the options you can put on the vehicle.
Heated cup holders, things like that. They're
not looking at that, I hope. The only way NHTSA
is looking at a heated cup holder is under their
recall authority. All right, let's jump on. Fred,
this is going to be one of your favorite bugaboos.
And I think this has been a bugaboo definitely
since season one. And it was how do roads get
paid for? And that's, you know, typically you
get paid, you get charged at the state level
a gas tax. Some states like California, it's
really high. Other states, it's virtually non
-existent. And EV owners, they don't buy gasoline,
so they're not paying anything. And Fred, early
on, you're like, well, you know, these vehicles
weigh more. They cause more road wear because
of this. But they're getting a free ride. Everyone
else is getting taxed on this. But now there's
a bill pushing forward to the Build America 250
Act. And part of this is that it would require
$130 federal registration fee to drive an EV.
And that fee would increase $5 by every year
until it reaches $150. And that's twice the amount
that essentially they're guessing that gas power
vehicles pay. So this is one, the way that our
roads are funded is Byzantine. And two, also,
I think the administration being like, hey, there's
another reason not to get an EV. So, Fred, I
want to know from you specifically, why did you
write this bill and why are you so anti -EB?
I have mixed feelings about it. Yeah. Because
it does make sense. You know, people shouldn't
be able to evade the taxes or the funding sources
for the roads. But given the Byzantine nature
of the funding that comes out of both general
revenues and applicable road tax, there's probably
not enough tax on fuel. to pay for the roads
because every time an administration raises the
tax, they get kicked out of office. Last time
was with Bill Clinton that caused catastrophic
loss of control of both the House and the Senate.
And people figure whenever you raise a federal
tax, that's going to happen to them. So they
don't raise a federal tax. So it really is Byzantine.
I can have mixed feelings about it. I don't like
the idea of taking the money, putting it into
the federal general revenue, and then losing
control of it rather than assigning it to the
highway tax fund. So I'm not familiar with the
details of this tax. I'm not sure where the money
is going, how it's being allocated. Yeah, it's
typically going to support transportation infrastructure.
That could be anything. There's a sign that way.
It makes sense. It would annoy the people who
own EVs, but since I'm not one of them, I guess
my mixed feelings are that it's probably a good
idea. I'd probably feel differently if I owned
an EV. Y 'all give me a minute. I've got a guy
here to look at their conditioner. He got here
early. I'll be right back. We'll be here. We'll
finish. The gas tax is super important. I wonder,
you know... It's really important to funding
a lot of transportation products, all the safe
streets projects, you know, any type of project
that would involve what I think we all support
is, you know, communication between the things
moving around the infrastructure, vehicle to
infrastructure, vehicle to vehicle communications.
That's where a lot of the public funding is going
to come from for that kind of thing. It's an
interesting bill because it does reassign some
of the responsibility of paying for that infrastructure
to electric vehicle owners. I see the need for
that. You know, I also could see, as some might
argue, that it's a disincentive. A lot of the
reason people were buying EVs were to avoid,
you know, the gas tax and things like that. So
it's maybe a little painful for EV owners, but
it's... You know, it's interesting that, you
know, basically the federal government is telling
the states to monitor this. You know, it's not
you're not going to be paying the federal government
that fee every year. The states are going to
have to come out and collect it for you. I don't
know if they're going to do it through registrations
or through other procedures. But it's interesting
in some ways. And it could help the, you know,
right now with the price of gas. I think the
infrastructure project should be doing pretty
well. Maybe they don't need this extra money
coming in, but I think we'd all like as much
funding as possible to head towards our transportation
infrastructure. Better roads. With that, let's
jump to Gaslight. You guys remember Gaslight?
Remember that section of the show? I did. I'm
going to start off. I'm going to choose Waymo.
Nope, Fred, I'm not going to do whatever you're
going to do. My Waymo is going to be. Related
to how Waymo has this problem where they've been
driving into floods and or they stop and they're
afraid of tiny little puddles. But this has happened
a few times. I believe it was in Austin where
they drove into floodwaters. And that's what
you want in an electric vehicle or any vehicle
for that matter, just to have it there floating.
And so quoting from an article, well, from an
article on futurism .com. Waymo, quoting, says,
we are working to implement additional software
safeguards, and I've put mitigations in place,
including refining our extreme weather operations
during periods of intense rain. So that means
Waymo is like, hey, we're going to figure out
a way to geofence our vehicles so they don't
go in floods. When it comes to school buses,
suck it, kids. So they have this technology.
They can go ahead and do this. But again, when
it comes to school buses, they don't give a crap.
Is that what's going on here? I mean, they have
technology to avoid flooding. They think, right?
They've put a recall in. But for all we know
at this point, you know, they're still trying
to train their AI, right, to figure this out.
At least their approach with flooding is a positive
direction. Whereas with school buses, they said,
oh, yeah, we did a recall. It didn't work. Nope.
We're not going to stop operating around school
buses. I mean, the remedy program for the recall
is different, right? They modified the approved
scope of operation. to get away from the flooding
events, but they refused to modify the scope
of operation to avoid school buses as requested
by Austin. Exactly. And Atlanta as well, I believe.
I think it wasn't... Atlanta was some issues.
I know Austin School District requested it, but
Atlanta may have... Atlanta, I think... Well,
come on. Are you guys environmentalists or not?
Because you've got to decide what's more important,
avoiding children or avoiding nature. By both.
Both, yes, is the answer. Clearly, Waymo came
down on the side of the environment. So how can
you argue with that? I mean, both of these situations
are something that drivers encounter all the
time and that as an autonomous vehicle company,
you should be handling with few or any problems,
right? One would think. So Waymo gets my gaslight
of the century, of this week anyway. Who's up
next? Who's ready to go? I'm ready to go. Oh,
he is. Ladies and gentlemen, Fred Perkins is
stretching. So there's an article or a newsletter.
What the hell is an open letter, Michael, that
came out that talks from medical responders or
medical people. I guess an organization called
Doximity. Anyway, what they've done, and I'm
calling them Physicians United, is that they
have endorsed the whole idea that. Since AVs
are saving 92 % of lives, that we must, we must,
must, must proliferate these as rapidly as possible.
We got to get out of the way of these miserable
states like Massachusetts, my own Bay State,
that is trying to have reasonable regulations
put in place for AVs. So, quoting from them,
it says, we call on state. and local governments
to replace unwarranted regulatory barriers with
evidence -based frameworks that encourage deployment
where the data supports it. New York, Massachusetts,
Washington, Washington, D .C., and Minnesota
are attempting to or have effectively blocked
autonomous vehicles despite this growing body
of evidence. Growing body of evidence. Well,
that's key, isn't it? Because the growing body
of evidence is based on a single biased in -house
study that was not peer reviewed by Waymo, which
is the leading proponent of AV proliferation.
It seems pretty clear that Waymo wrote this letter.
Fred, in this article, it says, and I'm going
to quote from this letter, it says, a 2025 peer
reviewed study. And they link to the peer reviewed
study. And so I put on my Fred Perkins hat, went
to it, went down to their sources in the study.
And a lot of it's like Arizona State, like around
nothing to do with AVs. But the two AV articles
they cite, you're right, were written by Waymo.
So everyone, this is this this letter, I think,
was written by the same doctor who wrote the
letter to the New York, the opinion, the New
York Times. No, but they cited it. They cited
his. He's the first signer. He's the first signer.
Yeah. And, you know, he's been pretty clear that
he doesn't have an interest with Weymouth. So
he's pretty clear that he's not smart enough
to take the money. He'll just do it for free.
Yeah. But I will point out, I will point out
in the doctors. I mean, look, I think our main
disagreement with the doctors is they are citing.
They are citing the Waymo study and other things.
I mean, mentioning Tesla in the article is kind
of a boo -boo on their part. But they're citing
a Waymo study, which, you know, as like hardcore
evidence that we need to take this technology
everywhere now, which I think is the big problem.
Okay, but I got to stop you right here because
the study that they cite is of early data. Yep.
dated no later than 2022. It's also a completely
different software stack than they've got now.
So whatever they concluded based on that information
has no relevance to the fleet that they're currently
proliferating. So there's no relationship between
whatever conclusions, and I think that the conclusions
they reached are wrong based on that study, and
the vehicles that they're currently proliferating.
So the idea that you need to proliferate The
current vehicles that are unrelated to any previous
safety studies in order to save lives is a compelling
argument. Not only calls into question Waymo,
but it calls into question the judgment of these
doctors. Would they refuse to use new medical
technology based upon a study that is five years
old? I mean, where the hell are these people
coming from? It's sad that Waymo's bad. It's
sadder to me that the medical profession is worse.
They're supposed to have technical training and
good judgment, and that's not evident. And just
click on a link and check the sources. But with
that, I will point out from this is I just got
to quote real quick because there's one part
of this I think we can all agree on. Part of
the letter, I'm going to quote, says we call
on Congress. That's a good part. That's what
I was about to talk about. So we call on Congress
and NHTSA to establish an enhanced federal data
reporting requirements for all autonomous vehicle
operators. Crash rates per mile, geographic deployment
data, validated benchmarks for comparison, on
and on and on. Independent safety audits verified
against police reports, insurance claims and
privacy protected medical records. All those
things are things that we would agree with, right?
Right. Sure. But all of those things, all of
those things. delay the implementation of life
-saving technology by years or decades. Okay.
What they should be doing if they're really concerned
about saving lives is they should be advocating
for the immediate implementation and immediate
life -saving impact of automated impairment detection,
automatic emergency braking, intelligent speed
assist, deployment of these and other proven
life -saving technology. You got to remember
seatbelts, airbags, dual diagonal braking. Backup
cameras, those are all fiercely opposed by the
automotive industry before they were introduced.
They're now commonplace, saving lives every day.
That same approach should be used in proven life
-saving technologies that could be deployed today,
not pie in the sky sometime in the future. Yep.
I agree. I'm right. I'm right along with that.
I just I think we do align with them and what
they want the federal government to do, which
is to get us get the public better data. Yes.
And on individual operators, too, there's clearly,
you know, a big range of safety that we would
trust between, you know, for instance, Waymo
and Tesla at the moment or Waymo and some random
company that comes in and starts saying they've
got the next AV or ABS system. Any safety technology
to deploy through AVs is not going to have a
measurable impact on highway safety. No. For
at least 10 or 15 years. True. Right. Which,
you know, this is. Which leads into, that leads
into my gaslight, right? Good transition. Which
is our most famous gaslighter. Kyle from Cruise?
This person says. Five years from now and certainly
10 years from now, probably 90 % of all distance
driven will be driven by the AI in a self -driving
car. Name that famous South African. Overwhelmingly,
it'll be quite a niche, niche thing in 10 years
to actually be driving your own car. I don't
think I really need to even say anything about
that. But, you know. 90%, effectively, what Elon
is saying here is that we're going to replace
90 % of the fleet with self -driving AIs in the
next 10 years, absolutely, and probably five
years from now. Hey, Elon, the clerk says a lot
of things. Does that sound like even remotely
possible? Or, I don't know. But at ranking gaslights,
I got to ask you, is it more important to consider
Somebody who's slinging bullshit, who's been
slinging bullshit for a long, long time, or the
perversion of the medical community to serve
the corporate ends of Waymo. Come on, Anthony.
Fred, you make an excellent point here. I think,
Michael, you're playing softball a little too
easy. It's a good one. I agree. Fred, I mean,
it's... No, no. Fred, you got a good point. But
half of what the doctors are saying, we'd agree
with. Um, you know, uh, but at the same time,
Waymo is a little softball too, for me. So I
think, I think Fred, you just squeak out just
by the smallest amount you win. All right. All
right. I'll take it. He didn't even consider
himself. No, I did. He barely beat me. No, you
had no chance. Come on. You're doing Elon to
Clark Musk. Come on, please. Hey, that's that.
Yeah. And that's the end of that section, ladies
and gentlemen. Let's go to one of my favorite
subjects, New York City. We've talked about this
in the past, about speeders, and this happens
all over the country. The New York Times has
an article, and this is great. New York City
is proposing, New York State is proposing a bill
that would require super speeders. to install
speed limiting devices on their vehicles. Not
only do they have to pay to have it installed,
they have to pay a daily subscription fee, $4
a day, to use this. I'm going to quote from this
New York Times article. Driver must be caught
on camera speeding 16 or more times in a single
year or more than once a month to qualify as
a super speeder. In New York City, that designation
currently includes about 14 ,600 vehicles. Holy,
what the, huh? Further down. The device, known
as an intelligent speed assistance, is a small
box affixed to the dashboard that uses GPS to
identify the speed limit, 25 miles per hour or
less on most local streets and higher on highways,
and caps the driver slightly above it. I think
this is amazing. They talk about, further down,
the 10 most frequent offenders in New York City
last year accrued an average of 179 camera speeding
tickets, and the worst driver has been caught
more than 1 ,000 times since 2023. One of those
drivers was Jamie James Giovansanti, a police
officer on Staten Island, who has amassed more
than 500 speeding and red light violations since
2022. What the police department's like, well,
we're investigating this. He was not doing. Yeah,
that's really good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Where he
was. He wasn't doing it while he was playing.
The fact that they the fact that they even mentioned
that he. that the violations occurred when he
was off duty as potentially mitigating the problem
here. But I was blown away. It's kind of pathetic.
Slow down, Jimmy. Over 14 ,000 violations of
people who qualify for this? I mean, I guess
that's a city of 8 million people, but most of
these people don't own cars. I mean, the law,
it said that you had to offend something like
16 times. Times in one year. Before you got this,
you know, considered for this technology, I think
it should be far lower than that. Well, then
my wife would qualify. Well, I mean, I don't
think I've gotten a speeding. I got a speeding
citation about 17 years ago going through a tunnel
in D .C. From one of those cameras. Oh, the D
Street tunnel. Five in a year. Good Lord. Yeah,
this is a lot. Sixteen in a year is what you
need. It's it's. Yeah, I think they should lower
that bar. Right. And I think one of the big problems
here is that there's they're not connecting.
They're not used effectively. They're using technology
to capture a license plate that connects the
vehicle to the crime. You know, I wonder if maybe
they should be connecting it to the person and
connecting it up to their driver record and insurance
and all that at this point. I think we have the
ability to do that. Do we? Yeah. Okay. Yeah,
but, you know, the first problem here is establishing
the precedent and getting a bar in place of any
kind. Right. It can be tweaked in the future.
to improve the outcome but certainly we shouldn't
let better be the enemy of good in this case
and hopefully this will move ahead yeah right
now it's in discussions with the albany state
legislature We'll give updates when hopefully
they all grow a pair and pass this one because
this is just a no -brainer. Yeah, this needs
to go out across America, the super speeder.
Super easy, lightweight stuff. I mean, that could
really, really reduce a lot of the problems we
have because it's these problem over and over
speeders and reaching extreme speeds that I think
are behind some of the largest. you know, growths
and crashes we've seen over the past decade or
so. Without a doubt. Something that really needs
to be addressed. And a lot of the speeding freedom
fighters are out there trying to avoid the impact
of technology that will actually slow them down.
And a lot of politicians buy into those arguments.
And it's, you know, we are where we're at. But,
you know, Europe already has intelligence speed
assistance in its vehicles. We need to get along.
We need to get NHTSA going along that path. and
start addressing this in the United States. Let's
move on. Let's go back to my friends at Waymo
and Fred's friends at Waymo, too. It's from a
Wired .com article where I'm just going to quote
directly. We've seen some behavior we haven't
seen in a few years. Waymo is frequently now
blocking our fire stations from access, added
Chief Patrick Rabbit, the head of the San Francisco
Fire Department. Their default is to freeze.
The situation can prevent fire trucks from responding
to emergencies in a timely and appropriate way,
he said. In Austin, first responders have been
frequently stymied by Waymo's freezing up, said
Lieutenant William White, head of the Highway
Enforcement Command at the Austin Police Department.
White said that contrary to what Waymo had told
first responders, the vehicles often fail to
recognize or respond to officers' hand signals,
which can lead to cascading delays during emergencies
or unusual road instances. I believe the technology
was deployed too quickly in too vast amounts
with hundreds of vehicles when it wasn't really
ready, White said. NHTSA did not respond to comments.
I don't know why NHTSA would respond. This would
be more of a Austin, Texas state legislature
allowing these things on their roads thing. Would
be my takeaway. Yeah, or, you know. I mean, I
guess they got exemptions, but okay. Yeah, I
mean, it's just, it's. It's a little disconcerting.
You know, for years now, I think we've pointed
out the problems with human and robot interactions
in this space. And the fact that, you know, first
responders and people who are in the middle of
all this on the roads are saying that they're
getting worse is pretty concerning. I got a legal
question for you, Michael. Oh, no. Oh, yeah.
Let's say that. He was holding it for a friend.
A passenger in a Waymo, and you're in Austin,
Texas, and the Waymo freezes in front of a fire
truck, and a fire truck just says, hell with
this, hits the accelerator, pushes the Waymo
out of the way, and the passenger gets injured.
Now, the passenger's already signed away their
rights to sue Waymo. How does that what happens
to that passenger in that case? This is that's
a that's got a lot of issues. They become famous.
Yeah. You're like, can you can you can you sue
your local fire department or government? Are
they protected under some type of, you know,
city state exclusion? from liability in that
situation. Yeah, but you're already giving away
your rights to Waymo, so. Is there an intervening
negligence on the part of the firefighter that
absolves the Waymo vehicle from stopping? That's
got a lot of issues there. Do fire departments
do this? It's been done. Really? I don't think
they do it to occupied vehicles, right? Well,
you know, it's an emergency. If you've got a
vehicle and it's an emergency and you're blocking
a road and you've parked your vehicle in the
middle of the road and a fire truck can't get
by, you may be fair game there. If you parked
your car in front of a hydrant and there's a
fire and they need to break your windows out
to get the hose through, that could happen. Maybe
that's just the movies, but I'm pretty sure that
happens sometimes in real life. I've seen pictures
of that. And but hitting a vehicle purposefully
when there's an occupant in it, I think is well
beyond the scope of what a fire department would
do. Well, you're a good San Francisco parent.
So you put your nine year old in there to go
to school and you can't see them in the backseat.
You just see there's no one at the driver's side.
So the fire department's hitting them. I think
the question might be better at if the Waymo
stopped in the right in front of a fire hydrant.
I mean, right in front of a fire. truck and the
truck couldn't avoid it right it's the same well
there's a record of them pulling into fire station
driveways yes and blocking you know that's blocking
you know when there's a communications blackout
i mean waymo is pro fire is what i'm hearing
they're probably going around town setting fires
with lithium -ion batteries So another question
that comes up is if they do that, if that ever
arises, how do they train their Waymos not to
do that? Because they're now using end -to -end
AI. So they would have to use many, many instances
of this happening in order to get the Waymo to
avoid it. Oh, nevermind. I'm going down a rabbit
hole. Forget it. That's an excellent question.
You're such a smart person. Let me research that
for you. Thank you so much. Are you our AI? I'm
your AI. Thanks. I'm your AI guy, but who's our
real AI guys, Mr. Fred Perkins? You ready for
some Tao time? I'm a robot. Let's go. Okay. Robot
Fred. Hey, I have a question before you do that.
I'm thinking of, you know, the kink song Lola?
Yeah. Is that available on karaoke? Because I'm
thinking of rewriting those lyrics in honor of
Waymo. Even if it's not, I think Anthony could
probably play them. the background for you. Ladies
and gentlemen, if you want to do a karaoke with
Fred Perkins, go to autosafety .org and click
on donate. You can donate just $1 and he will
take you to his local karaoke bar. I can see
it coming already. Okay, so I wanted to talk
about the safety standard for essentially all
cars and particularly all the self -driving cars,
which is Safety is defined as the absence of
unreasonable risk. This is bullshit. You know,
it's a safety standard that you cannot put a
number to. What is the number that you ascribe
to reasonableness, Michael? There is not one.
I mean, this is the standard for recalls, essentially.
Right. So it's all qualitative. Unreasonable
risk to motor vehicle safety. And there has never
been an agreed upon standard or number of percent
of defects, blah, blah, blah. You know, there's
language like a defect can't be de minimis. And
we can debate what that means forever. But there's
really not a definition there. Right. So the
self -driving car is a machine, right? And for
people to build machines, you need to have a
bunch of numbers because the machines respond
to numbers. You got to cut metal. You got to
make it fit together. You got to put software
in place. You got to have a certain number of
lines of code. It's got to execute a certain
way. And just saying everything is reasonable,
everything is qualitative, is never going to
work to establish a numerical safety standard
that... People can accept. And what they're really
doing when they do this is pushing the whole
problem down the road, waiting for a court to
decide what reasonable means in the context of
a self -driving car. And so there'll be another
decade or so until the judgment comes down. It's
been litigated all the way through the Supreme
Court. And God help us if these jokers are still
in there then to figure out what reasonable means
in this context. So for comparison, I wanted
to think about another complex machinery, which
is called a satellite or a missile or a launch
vehicle, because I'm more familiar with that.
And there's a standard for how to make them safe
and how to make them workable, which is called
the, you're clicking to it right now, handy title.
It sounds like something out of Dr. Strangelove,
how to make a missile safe. It is, kind of. It's
Space and Missile Systems Center standard test
requirements for launch, upper stage, and space
vehicles. So these are machines with comparable
complexity to the self -driving vehicles. And
it's possible to put on paper the numerical standards
for how to make this acceptably safe for operation
in a vicinity of people or space. universe or
whatever so i looked up the word reasonable in
that standard ladies and gentlemen if you want
fred at your next children's birthday party but
it's 127 pages and it is rocket science okay
so um i i recommend this to anybody who really
wants to get a lot of sleep because it's It's
hard to go through. But anyway, out of 127 pages
of standards, including purpose application,
baseline requirements, tailoring, yada, yada,
yada. I was surprised to find that the word reasonable
does come up. And it comes up in one instance
where it talks about a test description. And
it says one or more units shall be operated under
conditions that simulate their service conditions.
Service conditions define the operational environment
in which the unit is expected to operate. That
sounds a lot like a test environment for an AV,
actually, doesn't it? As such, it is reasonable
to demonstrate the condition when the unit is
in an active and operational mode. That's it.
That's how far reasonable it goes when you're
into rocket science and you're building a missile
or a satellite before the customer. which is
the U .S. government, will accept that it is
safe for operation. So I think that we should
really abandon this whole idea, however impractical
it may be to advocate that, that absence of unreasonable
risk is a useful parameter for designing in the
safety of self -driving vehicles. It's not a
benchmark. It's not a standard because it's flexible
by its nature. Is that what we're saying here?
Well, engineers should be embarrassed to talk
about reasonableness as a way to design something.
Hard to put that on your slide rule. It doesn't
have any reasonable detent on it. You got to
turn it over. And that's kind of what I was trying
to get at, but may not have succeeded at getting
at earlier, talking about NHTSA's recall process,
like evaluation. There is no arithmetic behind
it all, right? There's not a, you know, we've
hit this threshold. This has to be a recall.
You know, they kind of, it's kind of a look at
all of the circumstances and, you know. Different
administrations will see problems differently,
safety issues differently. And it allows for
that kind of political flexibility. But I think
it leads to a lot of confusion. You know, where's
that hard line when a vehicle needs to be recalled?
Yeah. And the other thing it does is it pushes
the whole problem down the road years because
it's going to go into litigation. It's going
to wait for a judge somewhere to make a judgment
and a jury and who knows what. In the interim,
whatever the defect was that caused the death
of somebody or the terrible injury of somebody
can still be produced, implemented, and put out
in the field. So we really need NHTSA, and there's
no one else who can do this, to start working
on a standard that becomes part of the certification
process for self -driving vehicles. Throwing
down, you know, throwing open the doors and waiting
10 or 20 years for a judge somewhere to make
a judgment after a catastrophe bad enough to
force people to make that judgment. So that's
that's it for today. Well, thanks for sharing.
I thought, Michael, I thought a recall was decided
is automatically is if the name badge said Ford.
Oh, come on. You're killing them. Jim Farley,
you're welcome as a guest anytime you'd like.
We didn't have a Ford recall this week. Well,
let's find out. Let's do recalls. There was one.
I left it out. Oh, you. OK. Recall time. First
up, Chrysler. Sixty one thousand seven hundred
and eleven vehicles. The 2019 to 2023 Jeep Cherokee.
An internally. failed PTU can cause an unexpected
and unrecoverable... What's a PTU? I don't know.
It's three letters. It's a power transfer unit.
Of course, everyone knows about it. And this
is a two -speed power transfer unit. And this
loss of failed power transfer unit can cause
an unexpected and unrecoverable loss of motive
power at any speed or rolling in park. What is...
Oh, so I'm in park and the car will roll. Is
that what it means? Where it's like rolling in
park, like the South Philly slide where you don't
really come to a stop. Yeah, when you put your
car into park, it locks the transmission. When
you put it on the emergency brake, it locks the
wheels. So if you are locking the transmission
by putting it in park, but the transmission is
broken, which is what this is talking about,
then your car can roll away. See, back in the
day, you used to have a handbrake. And so you'd
pull that up first while you're still in drive
and then put it in park. But my modern cars don't
have that. There's like a little park button
thing. I've never touched it. And I put it in
park and that light goes on. So I guess it puts
on the parking brake. I don't know how it works
these days. Well, that's pretty much how it works.
You turn it on and it works. It's kind of like
a switch, Anthony. Yeah. You may have seen those.
I like the handle where it goes. I had a friend
who used to. Love that handle, because when he's
going around a corner, he pulled the handle up.
Suddenly, he could break traction on the rear
wheels, and he'd spin around. Yep. So that was
fun. Pay turns. Fun. High speed. All right. That
one's going to be delayed, it looks like, too.
Chrysler says that the remedy is under development
and they're going to give owners an interim notification
in about a month. But that may just tell you
that the recall has been delayed and that you'll
be probably is going to tell you that the recall
has been delayed and that you will hear about
it at some later date. Well, I looked it up.
This turns out to be a very complex piece of
machinery. It's like a transfer case that they
used to have in the old days to just move things
from the front to the rear wheels. But it also
includes clutches and sensors and comparative
measurement of the wheels, rotational speed,
and yada, yada, yada. So it's pretty much your
basic nightmare. That's not involving my nightmare.
I'm not going to get into my nightmare. Next
up, a recall from a little artificial intelligence
rocket company called Tesla. They're not a rocket
company yet. Oh, well, whatever nonsense. 218
,868 vehicles. Oh no, they can't be recalled.
2023 Model Y, 2022 Model Y, 2021 Model Y. I don't
know why they're all separate. 2020 Model Y,
2023 Model X, 2022 Model X, 2021 Model X, 2023
Model S. You got a Tesla, just drive it into
a ditch. Loss of the rear view car. Ah, of course.
You know, we disappear for a couple weeks and
this is how you do me. Loss of the rear view
camera image may affect the driver's rear view
and increase the risk of a collision. The driver
may continue to reverse the vehicle by performing
a shoulder check and using their mirrors. Wait,
who wrote that part? Who wrote that part in the
recall notice saying, hey, as a driver, you can
turn your neck and look around behind you? Did
Tesla write that or did NHTSA write that? Tesla
writes these that. OK, plus one for them. That's
a great sense of humor. I love that. Yep. Yeah.
So what what is this is over the air? Is this
the. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's what something
I wanted to point out. But that's when, you know,
we don't usually have to talk about owners and
delays on recalls when it's one of these over
the air updates. So they started. pushing this
OTA software remedy out on April 11th, 2026,
and they filed this late. They could be fined
for filing this on May 4th, because that's way
past the time there should be notifying NHTSA
that there's a defect in their vehicles. But
at this point, 99 .92 % of the population has
already received the firmware fixing, hopefully,
this problem. All in all, you know, that's pretty
good recall performance on repair, not so much
on the notification side of things from Tesla.
Painful. Maybe, you know, dear leader was busy
in a lawsuit that he dreamt up. Yeah, maybe so.
If you're an owner, they're going to notify you
sometime in July. I don't know why their recall
process is so odd. Just for my own satisfaction,
can you say what was the name of that month again?
July. Oh, I enjoy the way you say the word July.
July. All right. Proper southern gentleman. He's
wearing a seersucker suit while he said that.
Hey, what do you need to use when the rain's
in July? Your umbrella. Ah, okay. Enough of this
nonsense. Next up, Mercedes. 144 ,049 vehicles.
The 2026 AMG GLC43. 2025. Some other ridiculous
AMG E53 E4 Matic Plus. Just stop it. Yeah, no.
None of our listeners want to hear you pronounce
it. Oh, my God, it keeps going on. There's like
10 pages of them. Yeah. Oh, it doesn't end. It
keeps going. I mean, if you're going to spend,
these vehicles are what? Minimum $70 ,000? Can't
you at least, you know, get better? Oh, it just,
I keep scrolling, people. It doesn't end. If
you have a Mercedes. Essentially, they're losing.
You're losing a display here. Is it a rear view
camera? No. Well, I don't know if the rear view
camera is potentially part of it, but it's essentially
your dashboard. Oh, that's not good. And, you
know, it was a new software version that they
introduced in August that caused this. So that
is the issue here. Mercedes is. doing this as
an OTA campaign as well. So this is something
owners should be receiving notice of through
their vehicle. And it looks like they'll hear
more about it in June, late June. But I don't
know how, it's hard to tell with these OTA recalls
exactly when the campaign is beginning or ending
or will take place. Yeah, from the notice, during
the brief period the reset is in process, the
instrument cluster may not display certain driving
related information. That's a little vague. Is
it my speed? Is it the outside air temperature?
What is it not displaying? My tachyometer? And
I'll point out, and I was hoping that a manufacturer
that usually takes some of the care that Mercedes
does on some of these safety issues, it's because
there's a connection, it appears, between the
infotainment system and safety systems, which
is pet peeve. Last up, a company called Wamo
LLC. Fifth and sixth generation ADS. On higher
speed roadways, the Waymo AV may slow but not
stop in response to detecting a potentially untransversable
flooded lane. Or, as we've seen in footage, a
puddle. It will just stop. So puddles be damned.
So you don't even need the orange cones to put
on the front of these cars. Just empty your water
bottle in front of a Waymo, and it'll just be
like, I can't move anymore. That's funny. Well,
I think you need to read this carefully. It says
untransversable. So what that means is that it
will slowly enter water that it will not be able
to navigate. Unless there's a school bus in front
of it with its stop arm out, then it just says,
yeah, let's just go for it. That's true. The
school bus is floating. Yeah, good. With that,
listeners, thank you for being with us here today.
On the hottest day. Hey, you stopped at investigations.
Do I have to do the investigation? There's apparently
a WeMill competitor in there. All right. What's
the investigation you want me to do? Let's open
an investigation. I think it was maybe a week
ago. All right. Let's take a look. It's AV Ride
Inc., which is apparently the company that Uber
is working with. They've been having some crashes.
I think they had like 16. In the first four months
of operation there. Wait, in the report, it lists
crashes slash fires as one line. That seems like
a weird combination. Why wouldn't they separate
those out? Crashes, fires, not crashes slash
fire. This could be because they're tracking
them. Like if a vehicle catches on fire and nobody's
in it and in your driveway, they count them.
in that same line yeah but that's where i would
i would want that they don't do that on the back
on the back end that's just their way of kind
of summary because because some some investigations
will be the incidents are going to be fires some
investigations the incidents are going to be
crashes some are going to be both so okay so
since fred insisted on this investigation discussion
what uh what do we need to know here Essentially,
the Uber's company is being investigated for
a number of crashes, and they're very similar
to what we've already seen, like changing lanes
when there's a vehicle in close proximity, failing
to slow or stop for other vehicles in the lane
ahead. That's a problem. Automatic emergency
braking should be doing that on the basic cars.
AVs shouldn't be having that problem. um striking
stationary objects in the lane and path ahead
again um so those have there been some property
damage and minor injuries nothing serious yet
but well there are a couple of videos a couple
of videos that showed the av rides being stopped
at a red light and then uh they spontaneously
decided to drive through the red light making
left hand turns even though it was still red
so that's uh That's not good behavior either.
No. That sounds like people in my neighborhood.
Can I recall them? Sure. Okay. I can't comment
on that. That's fine. I think they've all come
up to Beckett to spend the summer. So yeah, please
do recall them. Lovely. Fred, is the show over
now? You have my permission. Okay, excellent.
Thanks, listeners. Remember, when you're at the
Piggly Wiggly listening to this, go to autosafety
.org, click donate. Fred will come to your house
and sing karaoke with you on his horse. Until
next time, bye. Bye -bye. For more information,
visit www .autosafety .org.