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, welcome
to another episode of the Waymo Zone. Sure. I
don't know. No. No, not the way my... Okay. Anyway,
today is Wednesday, July 22nd. The weather has
cooled down dramatically where I am. I don't
know if it is for you. Oh, for Michael it's cooled
down and Fred thinks it's 1972 and he's going
to go play tennis because he's wearing a headband.
It's very disturbing. For those of you... I was
thinking more like Dr. J. Yeah, it's definitely
the 1970s. Whatever's happening there, it's not
right. But he's back, so we're happy about that.
Fred, last week we let listeners know that you
were crash -testing Waymo's. How did that go?
Went pretty well, yeah. We ran into a couple
of Zookses, but, you know, kept it all in the
family. All right, well, with that, let's get
into some real news. Hard -heading stuff. And
we'll talk more about Waymo, but this is more
about robo -taxis in general. From the Austin
American Statesman is an article talking about
how first responders and autonomous robo -taxis
don't get along very well. And I've got a couple
good quotes I've highlighted here. This is from
Austin, Travis County. And the quote is, but
robo taxis either blocked or ignored the direction
of Austin police and 25 percent of reported incidences
from July 2023 to June 2026, according to the
city of Austin's autonomous vehicle database.
Data collected by the city since 2023 shows interference
with law enforcement and other traffic is among
the top safety concerns surrounding autonomous
vehicles in the city. Further down, we've got
a quote says. I feel like whatever we say makes
no difference at this point. One Austin police
officer wrote in a report to the city. What do
we need to do to make sure this does not happen
again and for Waymo to understand how serious
this is? Waymo, of course, replies saying, safety
is our number one priority. We work with the
cities and everything closely. We're listening
to your concerns. As soon as the next available
representatives will take your call. But it brings
up the issue that I bring up repeatedly. Waymos
and robo taxis and Zooks, they can do whatever
the hell they want and there's no consequences.
Am I right? Well, there's consequences for the
city who is having to pay everyone who's responding
to these scenes, right? There just aren't any
consequences for the company that stands to gain
from all this. Yes. And part of Waymo's response
is saying, hey, we have all of this training.
For first responders. So, hey, first responders,
we're making your job harder, but we've offered
you training. And so I took their training. We're
going to make your job harder and make you go
back to school. So, yeah. So I'm going right
into my gaslight because I did their online training
because it's available to anybody. And it's amazing.
So I'm going to quote from their. their training
here. This is a direct quote from their online
training because it's just done online. Waymo
vehicles can only be operated without a human
driver in autonomous mode within specific geofenced
areas where they have been tested and validated
to safely perform all the dynamic tasks of driving.
And we know that is not true because they have
not been validated to safely perform all the
dynamic tasks of driving. Yeah, that's that's
nonsense. Well, not only have they not been,
they cannot be. It's just not enough money and
resources in the world to validate all of the
potential critical safety failures that they
might encounter. It's amazing. Further down.
So they have a this is how Waymo's fully autonomous
vehicles respond to police and emergency vehicles.
The Waymo vehicle uses its sensors to detect,
identify, and respond to active emergency vehicles
and first responders. Sirens, flashing lights,
emergency vehicles. That fails repeatedly. If
the Waymo autonomous vehicle detects that a police
or emergency vehicle is behind it and flashing
its light, the Waymo vehicle is designed to pull
over and stop when it finds a safe place to do
so. Once stopped for a traffic stop, the vehicle
remains stationary for the duration of the stop.
None of this is this is this is aspirational
at best. And so they have as part of this, as
you as a first responder can earn a certificate
saying that you understand how autonomous vehicles
work. So but but you don't. Right. Because they're
not giving you any insight into the unpredictability
by making statements that are conclusory and
essentially pretend that they don't have any
of these safety issues that we've seen. So my
my wife or some of her. clients they she um i
will not reveal who they are but some of them
are these large tech companies and she does nothing
with tech she's a horticulturalist but these
large tech companies because they're under consent
decrees from the government for releasing privacy
she has to take these online safety courses every
year and it's a very in -depth process of how
you're not going to take people's data and blah
blah blah and she has no access to any of this
stuff anyway she can't cause any harm whatsoever
but this waymo training for first responders
i clicked through all the slides didn't answer
a single question and it brings me to the quiz
it doesn't stop me says that i got anything wrong
and go ahead and so for me as a first responder
where i'm in a life -saving situation how many
questions do you think are required for me to
earn a certificate from waymo any guesses zero
close oh it is eight questions Eight questions.
And one of them is, they're all multiple guests.
And one of the questions I highlighted is, what
is the lowest level on the SAE scale to not require
an AV passenger to hold a valid driver's license?
Level three, level four, level five, none of
the above. This is a dumb question for a number
of reasons. One, it implies that the SAE scale
levels. mean anything, which... It also kind
of conflates the state issuing driver's license
with SAE. There's no such thing yet, right? Exactly.
Presumably, an SAE level 3 vehicle requires a
human takeover at some point, so you would expect
that human to be required to have a driver's
license, but there is no... hard and fast requirement
like that in law. Right. But as somebody who's
taken a number of standardized tests, Michael,
like I'm sure you've taken the LSAT to go to
law school. I love standardized tests. So this
question, this is my favorite question ever.
Again, I'll repeat it. What is the lowest level
on the SAE scale to not require an AV passenger
to hold a valid driver's license? You're the
passenger. Why do you need a driver's license
ever? That's my takeaway. You're the passenger.
You're the customer. You're not responsible for
anything. When I get into a cab, I don't need
a driver's license. That's mine. This is my gaslight.
Is Waymo wasting first responders' time? They
do have a diagram in there showing these are
the parts of the vehicle you can't cut if you
have to get in there and disable battery and
electronics. And it's pretty much the entire
vehicle. which is mind blowing to me. It has
in depth in there how to disable their batteries.
That's not part of this quiz at all. None of
that. There's no questions in there at all about
that. They're all nonsense questions. The closest
they get to it is what color are the high voltage
lines? That's important. Yeah, they're orange.
That's it. That's the answer. So my gaslight
right off the bat is Waymo trying to pretend
that they're offering valid certificates to first
responders. And instead, they're just wasting
more and more of first responders times with
nonsense. I want to reinforce the nonsense. Oh,
good. One of the statements you said was that
Waymo asserts that the vehicles are designed
to stop for all emergency vehicles with using
their sensors and all that sort of stuff. I know
this sounds like nitpicking, but there's a difference
between something being designed to perform an
action and something actually being proven to
perform an action. So that's a critical sleight
of hand that they put in this, and getting people
to equate the design versus the proof is pretty
sneaky. It's pretty good. But also we've seen
tons of examples of Waymo's ignoring the police
using its sensors. Ignoring fire trucks, ignoring
ambulances, all using their sensors. Ignoring
may not be the right way to put it since they
don't even know they're there. Oh, that's good.
Ignoring implies some intelligence. You're right.
There's no intelligence. So that's my guess.
light of the week, starting out strong. Who wants
to try and beat me this week? What do you got?
Oh, nothing. You're all hesitating. Oh, now you
want to go? I mean, I've got one that's related.
Fire away. From, you know, there was another,
an article that came out, I think it was right
before our podcast last week, but we didn't get
time to cover it, but it was from Bloomberg on
people falling asleep and having other types
of. unconsciousness happen while they're in Waymo's.
And essentially what's happening there is instead
of in a normal taxi cab where, you know, or a
ride share where if someone's drunk and passes
out, and I'm sure this is what happens, you know,
probably 90 % of the time or more of these cases,
instead of someone passing out in the back and
the driver being able to shake them, wake them
up, grab them by the collar and drag them out
of the street, out of the car. What Waymos have
to do is call the police who automatically have
to bring an EMS unit because they've got an unconscious
human in a car and they don't know what type
of response they needed. And this is happening
over and over and over and over again in cities
where this is not just, you know, I'm assuming
this is not just a Waymo issue. This is going
to be something that the entire autonomous industry
has to face. But in the process of, you know,
the article towards the end, there's a quote
from a director of product management at Waymo,
David Marginis, I guess is how you pronounce
it. He says Waymo's vehicles can offer a safer
solution in emergencies than a traditional taxi
or rideshare whose driver may not know how to
respond. I mean, pretty clearly, if there is
a medical emergency taking place in a cab or
Uber, the driver is going to know to call, you
know, to call emergency services just like a
Waymo would. OK, there is no advantage to being
in a Waymo in a medical emergency. This is nonsense.
I don't know. You know, I don't. It's. Mind -boggling
how people can say things like this when they're
trying to defend whatever they think Waymo is
offering here. But yes, taxi drivers and Uber
drivers know how to call 911 when there's a problem
in their vehicle. The best part about it is,
though, in those 97 % of cases where someone's
drunk or falling asleep, they can actually do
something without involving emergency responders
and, you know, once again requiring... the local
governments to babysit these cars so um there's
some there's even more nonsense in the article
from a guy who actually fell asleep well in quotes
you didn't get into what really happened to the
guy but um his quote i'll give him a gas light
too what the hell he says it feels safer in a
way with humans you don't know what's going to
happen but with waymo you do know Oh, you do
know your video of you sleeping drunk is going
to be posted on the Internet. Oh, I mean, but
you don't know. I mean, I don't know. But anyway,
nonsense, more nonsense from Waymo. Everything's
going to be better in the future. Right, Fred?
You betcha. That's what the future is all about.
I like this. Before you jump in, Fred, I want
to quote from this art. It's from the Chicago
Tribune. where you're saying that the guy from
Waymo said that, oh, it's better and whatnot,
and that the people know how to, you know, a
human driver wouldn't know how to call 911. Well,
a Waymo doesn't know that either, because the
opening story about this person, ditto Cassander,
he's apparently, I'm going to quote, his six
-minute trip had ended nearly an hour before.
A remote Waymo assistant dialing in through the
car speakers repeatedly tried to rouse him and
finally called 911 when he wouldn't stir. So
the guy's passed out in the car for 54 minutes
at his destination. And there's no human driver
who's going to wait that long. I'll call 911
later. I guess if you didn't have the Waymo Platinum
service, that's how long it takes for an assistant
to get on the line and serve you better. Excellent.
The definition of efficiency. Yeah, yeah. All
right. Mr. Perkins, back from his journey around
the world. What do you got for us? I've got,
this is kind of unique, a repeat contender for
Gaslight. Jonathan Slotkin, who is a decision.
Bravo, bravo. Wrote an article called Why We
Demand Perfect Machines Yet Tolerate Human Carnage.
In that article, he attempts to make a false
equivalence between medical technology advancements
and AV proliferation. So he's got this idea that
every AV on the road is saving lots of lives.
He sees resistance to the AV proliferation as
a perception problem. So if people only understood,
everything would be great. But the fact is the
resistance to AVs has far deeper roots. So one
critical difference is that medicine and advancements
in medicine have significant third -party requirements
and certifications. that are completely lacking
in AV history. You've got the FDA, you've got,
you know, various organizations, studies, independent
studies. You've got a requirement for peer review,
real peer review, not peer review by people that
you pay. And none of that is applicable to the
AV proliferation. It's wild west for AVs. They
can do whatever the hell they want and there's
no repercussions for them. The medical practitioners
are licensed, they're certified, they're periodically
reviewed by independent third parties for competency,
for currency, and efficacy. None of that takes
place in the AV industry. The proof of safety
is a necessary prerequisite for introduction
of new medical technology. Not so in AVs. Nothing.
You can throw whatever you want onto the roads.
Medtechs and professionals must conform to ethical...
and legal standards and can be sued or legally
sanctioned for non -conformance. Not so in the
AV industry. How do you sue an algorithm, even
if you haven't abandoned your rights? And the
fact is that to use the AVs, you must contractually
give up all of your rights to sue them, either
individually or as part of a class action. That's
in the terms of service. When I had my knee operated
on, I had to sign about 120 forms that said I
knew what was going to happen. I knew why it
was going to happen. I knew what could happen
if it went wrong. I had my name and ID checked
at every point in the process. I had to say five
times, yes, you're going to operate on my right
knee. There's a lot of checks and balances that
are occurring in medical technology that are
completely absent in AVs. Did you have to sign
an arbitration clause in there or a clause that
said? That they could change the contract while
you were in the midst of surgery. While I was
under anesthesia? No, they didn't do that. And
to my understanding, there are even laws that
apply to application of medical technology to
the replacement of my knee. So there's a lot
of fundamental differences here. And I'm surprised
that this physician who was... smart enough to
go through medical school and stuff like that,
simply to hit a dead end with this research that
says everything's okay. I want to give you an
example. Recently, there was an instance where
a Waymo tried to turn down a street where there
was an exit from a school and a fire drill going
on. And so there were hundreds of... Kids in
the street. There were teachers in the street.
And the vice principal had to actually stand
in front of the Waymo to keep it from turning
into this crowd of people, young kids, who were
being disgorged into the street. So, you know,
how do you train a system to do that? I'll get
into more of this later, so I'll let that go.
But the fundamental difference is. Fundamental
differences. So, Slotkin also relies on industry
-provided safety data that's not been reviewed
by third parties. And Waymo, at the time he wrote
this, apparently was still asserting that 94
% fewer accidents by Waymo than humans. But they've
recently gone to 75 % fewer mishaps. So, this
is a moving goalpost, I guess. And Dr. Slotkin
may not have been aware of just how fluid these
goals are. So the bottom line is that even if
AVs eventually can prove comparative safety benefits,
many, many more lives will be saved by migrating
that proven life -saving technology into conventional
cars as quickly as possible. Preserving the tech
for AVs costs hundreds of thousands of needless
deaths. over the next 25 years. So what he's
asserting as a way to save lives is actually
costing lots of lives in the future. It's just
a real misapplication of capital and technology
if your goal is saving lives. So for misdirecting
the appropriate focus for a life -saving automotive
technology, Jonathan Slotkin earns my Gaslight
nomination this week. And he's a repeat. Nominee,
one of the few that we've got. That's an excellent
one. I would like to point out that we were first
introduced to Dr. Slotkin from an op -ed he wrote
in the New York Times. After that, he got a lot
of backlash, feedback, questions about what nonsense
are you writing? I had a question for him that
he promptly responded. My question was, what
kind of funding do you receive from Alphabet,
Google, Waymo? And he said immediately, I receive
nothing from them. So in this article, which
I will point out is not in the New York Times,
it is in some online blog called Noema, which
prior to this, I mean, I'm not familiar with
all publications, but all of us are like, huh?
What? So how far he's fallen. Possibly due to
feedback and questions. Who is original? No.
Op -ed piece. No, no. And this one, he says again
that, you know, I received no funding from Alphabet
whatsoever. But I do spend a lot of time talking
to Waymo's Trent Victor. And he and I'm basically
whatever he tells me, I'm writing down verbatim.
I believe the Russians have a term for this kind
of behavior. It's called useful idiot. But. This
is just my humble opinion. And again, this is
a doctor who wants to have a machine take over
human operations. This is a doctor who wants
to remove the human from the loop and have the
computer take over the operation. Isn't he busy
enough? I mean, really? I don't know. There's
a lot of people out there who need medicine.
He's clearly handed over his entire job to an
algorithm because some doctors make mistakes.
It's all a wonderful life, that poor pharmacist.
So what happens when a doctor falls asleep in
the middle of surgery? Do they have to call 911
or do they call Waymo or what do they do? Please
stay on the line. Yeah, I think the first call
should be to their attorney. Your safety is our
highest priority. I've had a couple of surgeries
in my day and it's generally not, I've never
had it where there's one doctor in the room.
There's, you know, and these are not complex
things. There's, you know, the doctor, the doctor's
assistant, the anesthetologist, a couple nurses.
But hey, in Jonathan's world, we just need the
algorithm, man. I am not paid by Alphabet. I'm
not. Maybe that's what he's maybe this is his
thing is I'm not paid by Alphabet. Alphabet,
please pay me. Come on. Come on. Just pay me
already. Look what I'm doing for you. Well, I
hope he hears this and elects to come on the
show because I'm sure he's a much better and
more involved person than the caricature that
we're painting here would. Yeah, I love a lot
of the things that, you know. He says in articles,
because he's not saying just throw Waymo's on
the street. He's saying we need data. We need,
you know, a lot of the things we line up with
Dr. Slotkin perfectly on. It's just this aspirational
thinking that it's inevitable that autonomous
vehicles are going to be safer and save a bunch
of lives when we know that there's other technologies
that need to be going in cars now that the auto
industry is totally delaying. that could save
a lot more lives before autonomous vehicles are
a practical reality for most Americans. Well,
a lot more. And beyond that, there's the issue
of getting people out of traditional cars. People
aren't just going to happily jump out of their
self -driven car. I mean, the car they drive
into an autonomous vehicle overnight. There's
going to be a lot of resistance to that. are
it can be problematic when you try to take some
of their freedoms away from them and a lot of
people consider driving uh a freedom well i look
forward to his uh next op -ed in the safeway
shopper uh because that's the trajectory get
up it's your piggly wiggly hey i don't know if
he's piggly wiggly ready but this week uh scoring
of the gaslight nominees uh we've done the tabulation
and uh i won it's uh awesome That's what happens
when you trust an algorithm. What happens over
time when Anthony has just lost all credibility
as a judge, I just accept what he says and we
move on. Hey, no, I did extra homework. That's
why I won. I did the Waymo first responder certification
course. Yeah, okay. Come on. Michael, you were
close second because we laughed out loud. If
there was a trophy or something here, I might
get more concerned about it, but there's no prize.
Wait, what? There's no prize? Oh, hey, listeners,
there is a prize. If you go to autosafety .org
and click on donate, the prize is your happiness
in the world. And you feel good as a person.
Does this mean you're not certifiable? I am clearly
certifiable. Are you talking to my doctor, Jonathan
Slotkin? Anyway, let's move on. Damn it, Tesla.
I know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, everybody. But
we have to Tesla. They still exist. So we still
have to do it. This is from Electrek. Tesla remote
operator crashed a robo -taxi in Houston, NHTSA
data shows. So in the past, for those who have
not been paying attention, Tesla has to file
all these reports with NHTSA, but all of them,
they're redacted for proprietary reasons, and
so they don't look super embarrassed. And so
we've not really had access to anything of what's
in these reports, but for some reason now...
Recently, they started... Just on the robo -taxis,
though. Not on all their ADASV crashes with full
self -driving autopilot type crashes. They're
still hiding that stuff. Yeah, but somehow the
robo -taxis, that's coming out. I think it's
because they want to look like they're being
as transparent as the other robo -taxi operators.
Right. So I'm going to quote from this article.
This is from... Tesla's own narrative. While
the ADS was being supported remotely out of the
dead end road, the vehicle entered a grassy slope.
As the remote assistant operator continued to
recover the vehicle, they made contact with a
hidden tree stump. Those damn hidden tree stumps
always hiding out everywhere. This is remote
operators. We've discussed this with Missy Cummings.
We've discussed this with Phil Kopman. This is
a horrible idea. Like, this is a horrible, horrible
idea. What? Wait, what? Wait, what? Remote operators
driving, taking control of the vehicles. I mean,
to move it out of the way. Am I wrong? I mean,
we discussed last week that remote drivers are
almost necessary at this point. They are needed.
The remote supervisors. Right. Remote supervisors.
That's different. The remote driver is. Because
of latency issues and because of those nasty
hidden tree stumps. Yeah, and this is just evidence
that when the vehicle isn't perfect, the fallback
remote driver, you can't totally rely on them
either. And this points out that maybe Tesla's
camera -only system, if it can't see a tree stump,
maybe they need a LiDAR. Because I think a LiDAR
would see that nasty hidden tree stump. But Michael,
I mean, leaving leaving a road is kind of an
issue there is a grassy slope. OK, but so, Michael,
is there any more insight on why Tesla has started
releasing this information? Are we just guessing
that they want to appear transparent? I just
I just that's the only thing I can think of.
But, you know, I think also when you dive into
the data and I think that. Tesla is having significantly
more incidents that they're having to report
per mile travel than Waymo and some of the other
autonomous vehicle operators. Okay. Because we
know that they're only operating like, what is
it, 50 vehicles or something. Right. Whereas
Wayne was operating 3000 and Tesla is reporting,
you know, I don't know how many crashes they
reported around 20 or something. That's a lot
in a small fleet like that. Right. In a small
area, too. Yeah, I mean, they're having problems.
And, you know, I don't think they're until they
change their design and their sensor system and
just a lot of things. I just don't think I just
still don't see Tesla as a viable competitor
with Waymo or really any of the companies who
are in this space at the moment. Right. So since
it's been a few minutes, we've talked about this
company. Let's go talk about Waymo. I know. So
Waymo is really trying to get out into D .C.
and they really want in. And a few years ago,
I guess the D .C. government was like, yeah,
go ahead. Let your test cars out on the street.
And now Waymo is like, we want to offer commercial
service. And that's getting a lot of pushback.
Washington Post has an article and I'm going
to quote from it. Missy Cummings, a George Mason
University professor, researches autonomous systems,
has raised concern about D .C. roadway challenges
such as frequent motorcades. One of the things
that we see repeatedly, these cars really struggle
around rotating first responder lights. That's
a defining characteristics of these motorcades.
That's an excellent point we've discussed. Further
down, this is where Waymo really leans into their
stuff. Business leaders in Washington have expressed
support for driverless cars. So too have some
members of the blind community. Claire Stanley
said in an interview that she has lost track
of how many times a driver has declined to give
her a ride because of her guide dog, even though
federal law and ride handling policy is supposed
to prevent such refusals. The ability to be in
a vehicle where there's no human being to fight
that battle with is amazing, said Stanley, director
of advocacy and governmental affairs for the
American Council on the Blind. Now, having lived
in D .C. and having been refused repeated service
in taxi cabs and not even have a dog, I understand.
They just didn't want to drive me to Southeast
where I lived. So this, I mean, this is a legit
problem, but the Waymo is not the solution, is
it? It seems like a pretty heavy handed response,
but like, hey, isn't just basic enforcement better?
Am I naive? Well, I mean, I don't know. I don't
know what the enforcement of that's like in D
.C. I know that. I mean, I would get refused
a lot when I was trying to. get a cab out to
Virginia from, from taxi cabs. And even though
it's illegal or they can be getting a lot of
trouble from the taxi commission for doing that,
they just don't care because it's not enforced.
So, I mean, it is a solution. And I think that's
something we've heard. I think I heard that from
some folks with the Chicago transportation authority.
And they were saying that. they really, really
are looking forward to autonomous vehicles because
it's going to solve some of the equity issues
around taxis and people not getting rides in
the poor neighborhoods in town. And I can certainly
see that as an advantage. The only issue is,
you know, obviously, we don't think they're safe
enough to be doing that yet. Right. Well, the
other thing is, we've not heard from the blind
community in any area where the Robotaxis are
currently operating, that, yeah, it's working
out great. You know, if people compare the aspirations
to what they want to happen in the future, sure,
everything will be great. I mean, Trump got elected
on that basis, right? And there's no reality
behind the idea that the blind community is really
going to benefit. From these way most. And even
I think say they say they can, I think that we've
heard from a lot of folks in the blind community
that it really won't that independence won't
this, even if that comes to fruition, should
we be putting other people's flies at risk on
the road to make that a reality for the blind
community today? I say, no, I say, I mean, I
mean, once these, once if. If these vehicles
become safe enough that we can trust them on
our roads, then yeah, I think they could certainly
be a benefit there. But at this point, we still
have to do a cost -benefit analysis. And the
tradeoff of independence for the blind versus
people being killed by autonomous vehicles because
they've been on the roads too early is not acceptable.
I want to push back slightly on one thing you
said. You said we've heard a lot from people
in the blind community. We haven't heard from
a lot of people in the blind community. We've
heard a lot from people who are part of the American
Council of the Blind. And even more from the
Blind Federation. The Blind Federation of America.
We've heard a lot from those two nonprofits.
And unlike Jonathan Slotkin, they are very open
that they receive money from Alphabet. Really?
Yeah, they don't. I mean, I always I always assumed
that they did because they were showing up at
NHTSA advocating for years for autonomous vehicles.
But I've never seen that. Yes. Correct me if
I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that is public
knowledge that that that's wide open. So, you
know, we've we've heard from from that. I don't
know. I think I think Fred's got a legit point.
We need more data on this. And Michael, I think
you have a legit point that what I could be saying
could be wrong. I think there's a tremendous
vulnerability. I know they partner with them,
but I don't have any direct proof that they're
funding them, but I would assume that's going
on in some respect. I think there's a lot of
vulnerability that has never been discussed associated
with blind community using Waymos. There's a
lot of people who are sporting fake Ubers and
who are picking up people. under the pretense
that they're actually legitimate Uber drivers,
and then, you know, extorting money and doing
terrible things to them. There's no reason to
expect any different with Waymos. If people are
unable to see the vehicle that they're being
steered to, why is there a belief that they will
never be taken advantage of and steered into
a vehicle under false premises? You know, if
you call the... You call a Waymo. If you're a
bad person, you see a vehicle pull up. The blind
person walks towards the vehicle. And you could
be mistaken for a good Samaritan who says, no,
no, no, that's the wrong vehicle. Go into this
other vehicle. So I think there's as many vulnerabilities
associated with the blind community using Waymos
as there are potential solutions. I don't think
anybody's addressed that in any kind of detail.
And just to do a sanity check, I did pull up
a document from Google itself saying these are
the list of politically engaged trade associations,
independent third parties and other tax them
groups that receive the most substantial contribution
from Google's U .S. government affairs and public
policy team. And both the National Federation
of the Blind and the American Council of the
Blind are listed as recipients. Who else is on
there? You got a ton of people, but you know
who's not on there? The Center for Auto Safety.
That's right, because we don't take those dirty
dollars. But we'll take them from you, because
they're not dirty. Go to autosafety .org, click
on Donate. Wow. Yeah. Before we jump into the
town, we're going to continue with this somewhat
related. So Waymo, they really want the Waymos
out in D .C., running Ford. And now Waymo works
with Uber, or Uber is like, hey, let's get Waymo
vehicles. But people use our app to do it, so
we get a cut. But Waymo is against. Sorry, Uber.
It's confusing. Uber is against Waymo's proposed
bill in D .C. saying, yeah, let this come out.
Instead, Uber, quoting from an article we have
linked from MSN, Uber, which opposes the bill,
argues that the proposed rule would displace
four higher human drivers and hand Waymo a de
facto monopoly. It is lobbied instead for a system
that require robo -taxis to operate on a ride
-hailing network that also uses human drivers.
According to public records viewed by TechCrunch
interviews with industry and company sources.
So, yeah, Michael, you're right. This could have
been a gaslighting. I mean, anybody can see what's
going on. Uber doesn't want Waymo taking away
a segment of its market, period. So what I imagine
is. And they've partnered, like they've partnered
for a while. I think, I don't even, I mean, is
our Waymo still available in the Uber app in
certain places? I thought they were. I think
they are. And here they are. Here they are at
loggerheads over over these issues. So that's
interesting. Hate me cynical, but I think Uber
is just going to be like, look, we're going to
have one human driver. That's all we need. And
then you have to funnel it all through this and
we'll give Waymo a little bit more percentage.
You know, I hate to point this out, but Uber
had one human driver in the only fatal, directly
fatal autonomous collision there has been. That's
true. It's hard to believe anything that comes
out of the mouth of Uber, frankly. I mean, I
know we kill Waymo a lot here, but Uber is...
A German word. How do you say? Hey, and with
that... It's hard to trust them. How do you like
this for a transition into the towel, Fred? Is
that a nice, soft transition? Or does this remind
you of Casey Kasem years ago transitioning to
a birthday dedication or a dead dog dedication?
You know, I never heard Casey Kasem. I lived
out in the sticks. So I'm a little handicapped
with that analogy. Well, someone just people
go online and Google search for Casey Kasem dead
dog dedication. It's fascinating. That's an oldie
from the Internet. Anyway, go on, Fred. All right.
So in my own. Fred missed last week on our discussion
on edge cases. So he's going to go back and tell
us where we went wrong. Oh, right. So, Fred,
keep in mind, these are big shoes to fill because
we had, you know, Professor Amaretis. I don't
know what his title is anymore, but from Carnegie
Mellon, Phil Koopman. Yeah, you had all the heavy
hitters on. So, you know. You're a man wearing
a headband. Yeah. It's the 60s all over again.
So. I have a problem with the term edge cases.
And I know that my distinguished colleagues and
those people who would not deign to call me a
colleague as well use the term, loosely defined
as a negative or dangerous AV operational event
for which the AV machine learning algorithms
have not been trained. The term has crept into
the language without really addressing what the
consequences of that are. The problem that I
have, one problem that I have is that the definition
really comes with the underlying assumption that
the control algorithms could be trained for that
edge case event. But that's just not so. There
are so many edge case, what you could call edge
case events or potentially edge case events,
that you can, there's not enough time and money
in the world to validate your response to all
of those. unhappy events. There are so many.
And you only know that edge cases are going to
be a problem once they occur. So it becomes podological,
right? What's an edge case? Well, an edge case
is bad. How do you know it's bad? Well, because
it occurred. Yeah, I think that's one of the
major problems with trying to build safety standards
that can... You know, if you say I'm going to
build a safety standard that eliminates edge
cases, that's almost nonsense. I think because
how do you do that? Is there a way to see the
unseen or to know what's unknowable that we don't
know yet? It's it's it seems like a really, really
tough thing to do. Well, yeah. And, you know,
I've done some number crunching from time to
time that shows that there are literally millions
or billions of combinations of things that could
occur. using only a small set of safety -critical
phenomena that are possible. And if you've got
things that are likely to occur in the millions,
how do you establish all of those and how do
you train for them? There's a couple of fundamental
problems. One problem is that we tend to anthropomorphize
the computer, thinking it thinks like us and
does things like us. But that's not how it works.
They're sort of the inverse of each other because
a human will rapidly generalize from specific
examples. You learned how to do long division.
You never had to look at every possible long
division example to know how to do that. But
the AI works exactly the opposite. AI looks at
a lot of different phenomena in general and then
tries to revert to the specifics. to apply that
logic to a specific circumstance, like in traffic,
right? What the hell does it do? It looks back
in the database and looks at a lot of events,
none of which are identical to what it's seeing,
and tries to apply that general information to
the specific circumstance. It's just the inverse
of the way humans think. There's even another
deeper problem. No human being can unambiguously
relate the cause and effect for an AI engine.
It's by definition, it's something that the machine
does that a human can't do. So in a traditional
development program, you find a problem, you
trace it back through the software to the, whatever
the instigating circumstances, right? And you
fix the bug and then you're good to go. That
cannot happen in a machine learning environment.
The only way to relate cause and effect in a
machine learning environment is to just run the
test thousands and thousands of times and develop
a statistical relationship that says in X number
of circumstances, this Y is going to happen.
But you've also got a number where it's not going
to happen, right? So the statistics are very
different than the deterministic approach that
is conventional. And no human being can understand
that in prospect. Things happen. Like Phil talked
last week about people or the machine learning
mistaking people with the yellow vest on. Or
a traffic sign, right? Because traffic signs
are always yellow, so anything yellow is a traffic
sign. This is something no human being would
do, but it was not anticipated either that the
machine learning algorithm would do that because
people just don't think that way. With an AI
engine, there's always uncertainty that the right
causes were selected and that the probability
of effect is high enough to declare safety with
sufficient confidence. So you really never know.
Replicating once or twice is not enough. In a
recent event, a public school vice principal
stood in front of a Waymo to prevent it from
turning down a street where students were emerging
from a school during a fire drill. There was
no audible or visual clue that that would have
been a trainable cue. So there's no klaxon going
off that the Waymo could detect to say, well,
there's a problem here. We can't go down this
way. No, the only way to protect the students
was for the vice principal to stand in front
of the Waymo. So how do you train that? In order
to train the system, you'd have to replicate
it hundreds of times, minimum tens of times,
hundreds of times. How do you do that? How do
you replicate that situation enough to train
the machine? Because if you don't have lots and
lots of events in the database, the machine's
not going to know what to do. There's not enough
time and money in the world to replicate that
over and over again. And even if you do train
it for one particular school, how do you know
that that's going to be good for all the schools
that are going to happen? So the only thing you
can really do is throw up your hands and say,
well, you know, this is just not something we
can cover. But calling it an edge case... gives
you a perceptual cover for it to say, well, it's
just an edge case. You know, it's not something
that we have to worry about. Well, who says it's
not something you have to worry about? Can remote
assistance solve the problem? Well, remote assistance
can solve some problems, but only if they're
happening very, very slowly over the stationary
car. If you are in an AV at speed going down
the highway, And all of a sudden the control
system fails, right? Should have turned left
instead of turned right or whatever. If it happens
at speed, there's no way in the world remote
assistance is going to help you solve that problem.
There's no reason to believe that all of the
control system failures that you could call an
edge case are going to happen at low speed. There's
every reason to believe that a lot of them are
going to happen at high speed. We've seen this
many times, right? We've seen phantom braking
occur. It caused accidents. It caused collisions
to occur. There's no way that a remote assistance
can sort through all of the phenomenon and the
control structure, the command structure, all
that stuff that happens when it's being pulled
for a remote assistance. And there's no way of
knowing that the car will even know. that it
needs to call remote assistance. So I think here's
my bottom line. Calling an unsafe AV operation
an edge case is misleading and gives developers
an easy out for what should be characterized
as an unsafe control failure. Language is important,
and these ponderous, dangerous machines should
not be misconstrued as benign, except for the
occasional whoopsie. Their hazardous industrial
machinery being deployed in public without the
customary safeguards. They're robbing people
of their rights by the terms of service while
endangering the public without their knowledge
or consent. So there you go. I'm a little opinionated
about it, but that's my discussion for this week.
Excellent. We appreciate you. That's what I'm
supposed to say, right? Is that it? Yeah. Okay,
good. Are you supposed to say thank you for sharing,
right? Oh, thank you for sharing. I hear you
and I understand you, but I don't understand
you. Wait, what? No, okay. I don't know. Before
we go into recalls, let's jump into an article
from Smart Cities Dive. It's a horrible name.
Bike lane speed cameras removed from FHWA safety
measures list. The Federal Highway Administration.
remove these things oh my god and didn't explain
it i'm gonna quote from they they cut they kind
of did actually well you're quoted in this article
so we'll get to you in a second you know this
happened right after right after i think sean
duffy tweeted that that bike lanes are essentially
dei and since they're eliminating dei and all
that nonsense from the government I guess they
consider bike lanes part of that. So they've
suspended allowing the bike lanes and speed enforcement
cameras from the list of safety countermeasures
that are on the Federal Highway Administration's
website. Those are the approved countermeasures
by the federal government that states can receive
grants for. They've taken off. Speed cameras
and and bike lanes, bike lanes under the assertion
that somehow there are they are DEI, which is
utter nonsense. But they've replaced this with
men who are who have high T levels just yelling
at you. Hey, slow down. Don't drive so fast.
Get off that bike, wimp. No. Quoting from this
article, speed safety cameras can substantially
reduce speeding, according to the Insurance Institute
for Highway Safety. In 2025, 338 communities
operated speed safety cameras per IIHS data.
They are important tools for a comprehensive
approach to safety, an IIHS spokesperson said
in an email. Getting drivers to pay attention
and slow down protects everyone using our roads.
Duh. Like how I don't understand why what is
woke like a sure bike lane. The only look, the
only the only justification here in the mind
of, I guess, Transportation Secretary Duffy is
he doesn't know how to ride a bike. He just wants
political points from the group of voters who.
Our anti speed cameras are essentially and the
secretary of the Department of Transportation
is pandering to anti safety folks for political
points. I mean, it's pretty pathetic. I want
more speed cameras because then we can eliminate,
you know, cops who are hiding on the street doing
really the hall monitors job as an adult, like
pulling people over for speed and just speed
cameras do that. They'll be better. And I think
he's against bike lanes because he never learned
how to ride a bike. This is so sad. sean duffy
come on over i'll teach you how to ride a bike
big boy it'll be fine no no worry this should
have been a gas light this week it's just non
-stop gas light all week but but who who is there
a lobby saying get rid of speed cameras is it
is it david letterman No, there's it's just it's
it's literally just people who are entitled speeders
who are complaining to their representatives,
their council people, their federal reps. They
think, you know, that this is a they come on
all sorts of nonsense, a violation of their privacy.
Like, look, I get if it's, you know. a flock
camera or something that is tracking you and
isn't secure. And people can hack into flock
cameras and figure out everybody's gone by stoplight.
Like clearly there's a privacy issue there, but
a speed enforcement camera that's not tracking
that type of thing. And it's just singling out
people who are not just over the speed limit,
but well over the speed limit enough to get a
ticket. I don't, I, you know, and we know, we
know. that they reduce crashes. We know they
reduce fatalities, and we know they reduce injuries.
Like, it's not even up for debate. And for the
Secretary of Transportation to say, essentially,
the federal government no longer supports this
when they know it is working to save lives is
just terrible. There's no other way to put it.
I got busted in D .C., and then as a result of
that, I started to observe the speed limits.
So I was on the Southeast Expressway. Driving
at 45 miles an hour, which is the surprisingly
low speed limit for that. And I got to tell you,
people were not happy with my performance that
day or any other day. That's going to be in your
tombstone. People were not happy with my performance.
Speaking of not happy with performance, let's
go into recalls. First up, BMW. That's right,
Bavarian Motorworks, 29 ,119 vehicles, the 2018
to 2020, some dumb name. It's a plug -in hybrid,
530e xDrive. Yeah, it's their little bitty plug
-in. Yeah, 2017 to 19, another xDrive thing.
2018 to 2020, 530i performance. If you have a
plug -in hybrid. The important thing is that
if you have a tiny plug -in hybrid, BMW need
to park outside. Yes. Yeah, because in certain
cases, corrosion inside the starter relay can
also lead to a short circuit and possible overheating
of the starter. In an extreme case, oh, yeah,
this could cause a thermal event during vehicle
operation when the vehicle is parked and the
ignition is off. Thermal event means fire. Yes.
And this is, as Michael said, listed as a park
outside event. But beyond that, it looks like
they're just going to replace your starter and
it'll be at the end of August. So park outside
for a couple of months and get your get your.
appointment scheduled as soon as possible, and
then you can park in your garage again. A friend
of mine has one of these little tiny cars like
that. I don't know if it's a hybrid. A friend
of mine had one, too. He said he hardly ever
had to buy gas. Yeah, she's got one, and it's
like, I was in it once, and I was like, it's
like being in an iMac from 1998. I'm like, this
is so, like, the color tones. And the gas tank
is tiny, too. I guess. It's just a couple gallons
or something. But the names are dumb. Next up.
Ford, that's right, world champion, heavyweight,
high -T company. Ford, 387 ,911 vehicles, the
2020 -2027 Aviator, 2020 -26 Explorer. On affected
vehicles, it is possible that the easy entry
seat tip and slide switch on the second row outboard
seats may intermittently bind or become stuck
in the down position. This binding or sticking
may result in the seat tipping and or sliding
unexpectedly, potentially while driving. Oh,
thank God it's not like the driver's seat because
that'd be really bad. But so I'm stuck in the
back of this vehicle and my aviator because I'm
cool. I'm flexing. And then it just sliding around
on me. Is that what the deal is? Yeah, I mean,
I think the biggest concern here is that in a
crash, what, you know, what could happen here?
You know, we really like our seats to be static
and non -moving on their rails in a crash. So
that's the problem. Ford, you know, it looks
like owners are going to be waiting a long time
on this one. So either avoid use of that seat
or. Be really careful about ensuring that it
is fixed before you leave for wherever you're
going, because you're going to have a while here.
It doesn't look like owners are going to get
an actual remedy for this until the start of
next year. Next up, Hyundai 47 ,749 vehicles,
the 2025 Kona Electric, the 2026 regular Kona.
The rear center seatbelt buckle assemblies in
the subject vehicles may have been manufactured
outside of specification, which could affect
their performance during a crash. Oh, the supplier's
stamping die was not maintained properly, resulting
in wear from overuse. Oh, come on, boo. Bad buckles.
September 11th is when owners will probably see
their notification. And hopefully they can get
that fixed. They're still using kids to assemble
cars or is that? No. I think they got busted.
And remember, it wasn't them directly. It was
just the third party suppliers. One of their
suppliers. That happened to be directly related
to the company or something. Down in Montgomery,
Alabama area. Next up. Oh, this is the first
time I believe we've seen this company in the
recall roundup. Is this true? Is this the first
time? Second time? It's all like not more than
it's happened a couple of times. A couple of
times. All right. Zooks. That's right. Zooks.
The car isn't going forward. Is it going backwards?
Who knows? One hundred and five vehicles. This
is just the Zooks, the automated driving system.
That's the name of the vehicle. Reduced visibility
while driving near an active emergency scene
can increase the risk of a crash or impede first
responders. This is fascinating. So let me repeat
this. Reduced visibility while driving. So as
a human driver, you understand what that means.
Oh, maybe my A pillar is way too big and it's
blocking my view. Maybe the defroster didn't
work. I can't see anything. Now the Zooks are
supposed to have cameras, radar, LIDAR, ultrasonic.
What does reduced visibility mean for Zooks?
I don't know. We're all at a loss. I mean, it
sounds like, you know, this is an active fire
with heavy smoke. This isn't like what we all
had in the Northeast. Last week and maybe maybe
we'll have again soon with the wildfire. This
is an this is a Zooks that was near of, you know,
a very active fire and apparently wasn't able
to respond appropriately. Yeah. From how did
they fix that? I just I wonder. How did they
fix this so quick? Yeah, it says the vehicle
encountered heavy smoke that obscured an active
emergency fire scene. OK, what? you so the there's
too much smoke i couldn't see there was fire
like what like that just seems wrong ah like
what is going on here but okay shouldn't lidar
work through smoke i mean unless the smoke particles
are massive No, LIDAR should not necessarily
work through smoke. Oh, LIDAR won't work through
smoke. Okay, what about... Not necessarily. It
depends on a lot of variables, but not necessarily.
I'm assuming this is very heavy smoke. Radar
should work through smoke. Radar should be, okay.
But the thing is, it's saying it encountered
heavy smoke and it obscured the scene, and so
it entered the scene. Heavy smoke, no, don't
go. No human would make that mistake. Okay, there's
a couple people I know, but they're not that
bright. Maybe it has a faith -based control system.
Again, designers of these systems, I'm going
to make it sound very easy, and I know it is
not. If you encounter a situation you don't understand,
leave that situation as safely as possible. That's
just my end of rant. So what's the deal? I love
it says planned dealer notification date. No
dealers. Planned owner notification date. No
owners. So has this been fixed? Isn't 105 every
vehicle they've got? Yeah. It must be every vehicle
they have. Anyway. Yeah, it looks like, you know,
it looks like they said they're doing an updated
software. will be released to all impacted Zoox
vehicles. And they don't specify much, you know,
about the fix, but. Trust us, bro, it works.
Lastly, Ford Motor Company coming back, you know,
with an uppercut, 288 ,314 vehicles, 2016 to
2019 Explorer. The roof rail covers may become
loose and detached from the vehicle while it
is in motion. A detached roof rail trim cover
can separate from the vehicle, creating a rose
hazard for other drivers and increasing the risk
of crash. Is this just to tighten the screw?
Is this what happened? You know, I don't know.
I think that there have been a lot of recalls
by Ford for, you know, all of this stuff on the
outside of the vehicle. It keeps falling off
and endangering other road use. I was reading
an article about this the other day. They just
had a lot of issues with this kind of problem.
Not just roof rail covers, but other pieces of
the vehicle exterior. So, you know, I think this
is Ford's 58th, 59th recall of the year. And
these are older vehicles. So this, this has been
a problem that's been going on for quite some
time. I mean, this is a decade, 10 year old vehicles
in some cases. Yeah. I think Ford needs to set
a focus on quality for their customers, maybe
focus on quality for their employees. So they
don't keep making these types of mistakes. Happy
worker, happy products. I don't know. I'm going
to speculate that it's adhesive wearing out.
They probably. They probably glue these parts
in, and after a few years, the glue just becomes
brittle and breaks or something. That's pure
speculation on my part, but that would... And
you're incorrect, because according to the remedy,
it says they need additional pushpin fasteners.
The pushpin fasteners are present, then no...
It seems like a little pushpin, little piece
of plastic is broken off. It doesn't even seem
to be. adhesive so anyway with that listeners
that's our show uh before we go i do have one
plea to listeners if anyone would like to send
michael brooks a new set of headphones that would
be great he's been suffering with these in ear
earbuds the entire time he can't find his headphones
a nice set of uh you know sony studio monitors
he'll be happy that'll be great or you know anything
like that because You know, we have to see his
face and we can see the discomfort. And it's
not just from everything that I say. Yeah, I'm
having to tilt my head to keep the earphone.
Michael would be happy to model them for the
publicity, you know, for the PR group that's
providing the headphones. His picture's available.
Oh, I wasn't even suggesting like Sony or Shure
or somebody send him a headphone. I was figuring
out a happy listener. And with that, till next
week, we'll be back. Bye -bye. bye bye thank
you bye bye for more information visit www .autosafety
.org