You're listening to There Ought To 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, everybody, welcome
to Fred Sings. Fred Kroons for us. Today is Wednesday,
August 5th. Thanks for coming back to the show.
And this week, we're going to start off with
everyone's favorite, autonomous vehicles. That's
right. So, last week, that little agency that
could, NHTSA, put out some new rules and, I guess,
they're not even rules. They're not rules. They're
not rules. They're putting out press releases
saying, Saying we're doing this and none of it's
really been done. And even if it gets done, it's
just going to be guidance that does zero for
safety. It's, you know, essentially what they're
doing is mowing down all their authorities or
changing them to allow autonomous vehicles on
the road without setting up any type of safety
system to make sure that they're operating safely.
Basically, on July 30th, I think they granted
Zooks an exemption and allow them to start charging
for passengers. And so Zook puts out a press
release around this. And then NHTSA essentially
puts out the same press release talking about
how they're coordinating. I mean, that's the
crazy thing that they're coordinating behind
the scenes. You know, I've been heard from people
who are. at the announcement who literally saw
that, could tell that the Zoox people were basically
there as a celebration, right? So if you ever
had any question as to whether, you know, Secretary
Duffy is coordinating behind the scenes with
major autonomous vehicle companies, I don't think
there's any question about it. No. Well, I was
glad to see in that announcement that they're
requiring Zoox to affirmatively inform everybody
who is a customer that... They are not compliant
with all the federal motor vehicle safety standards
and that everybody will need to understand that
before they're allowed to click on the terms
of service to accept them. That will force them
to give up their rights to sue, even though the
vehicles are not compliant with the federal motor
vehicle safety standards. I think that's a big
step in the right direction that they're forcing
people to acknowledge the risks. associated with
using these commercial services. Don't you agree?
I think you're the only person that reads terms
of services, clearly. In that case, everyone
else just clicks agree, get me to the nearest
Wendy's. Now, was that facetious, Fred? It was
meant to be, but you guys' response tells me
that I'm really reaching for it. I thought maybe
you read something a little more carefully than
me, but yeah, no, they are not doing that, right?
So you mean the people are, without any knowledge,
getting into a commercial vehicle that is not
compliant with any safety standards at all? It's
compliant with some, but not the good ones. Yes,
they're doing that. You know, I would say that
that's not too different from the state of play
now when you're getting into a taxi cab, but
you know then that, you know, it's... It's at
least met federal motor vehicle safety standards
when it was purchased. Whether it continues to
meet them over time is one thing. But the fact
is, in AVs, I mean, maybe the vehicle has been
exempted from safety standards that apply to
human driven cars. But there are no safety standards
that regulate the performance of autonomous vehicles
and their safety performance. So that should
be the biggest red flag to me. There's also an
extensive body of law that regulates. Uh, taxi
performance when you've got a human driver, right?
I mean, there's a lot of things they can do.
Yeah. There is, there's some, I mean, it, it
doesn't really reach, you know, it reaches taxis
in some places. It might reach, um, some States,
it might reach the ride share industry, but it's,
you know, like a lot of things this year, it's
certainly very patchwork, um, system. Um, you
know, I'm not gonna. There was one part of this
announcement that I think we have to discuss
for a number of reasons, just because it's odd.
It says that NIST is going to accelerate development
of the first AV performance standard. So this
is them saying, yes, at some point, we're going
to get around to actually putting rules here
with a partnership with SAE Industry Technologies
Consortia, ITC. First of all, the partnership,
they're only spending $5 million over three years
to do this. would just flat out say that's not
enough money and not enough of an investment
to get this done, right? That's peanuts. And
beyond that, it's a partnership with SAE Industrial
or Industry Technologies Consortium, which is
essentially the industry, right? That was exactly
the industry. I want to point out that it's not
SAE. It's a separate. nonprofit, well, it's a
separate not -for -profit organization, but it's
organizationally completely separate from SAE.
So it's basically a made -up organization completely
funded by the AV industry. Yeah, and that's why
I'm wondering about that $5 million, because
it seems like a lot of the funding for this is
coming directly from industry, not from that
$5 million. that NHTSA is plopping in because
it requires so much cooperation from the industry.
I don't think that this partnership is where
the regulations for safety of the industry should
be coming from, given that it's a partnership
directly with industry and not even SAE more
broadly. But this specific consortium of industry,
it gives me a lot of, yeah, I have a lot of concerns
about that. On top of the fact that NETS is just
pursuing guidance at this point, which they've
been doing now for over a decade. Yeah, so it
is the AVSC that is this SAE ITC thing. So AVSC
does not allow any inputs from any red team or...
consumer advocacy or legislative inputs. It's
strictly limited to invited industry participants.
And by the way, the largest industry participants
in the AV industry, which are Tesla and the Chinese
companies, are not included in this. So as they
move forward... Tesla may be by choice, right?
Tesla probably by choice. They're excluded, right?
Yeah, but the point is they're not there. And
so as these regulations move forward, they're
not including the biggest players in the AV industry,
and they're not including any pushback from consumer
organizations. So we're going to jump into that
specifically in a minute, but let's jump back
to this Zoox NHTSA. Press release. So for remind
listeners, Zoox is a toaster looking object that's
been operating in Las Vegas and I think L .A.
a little bit or San Francisco. Maybe down in
Seattle. Yeah, I think there's a few spots. So
this is a vehicle where there are seats that
the passengers face each other. They there is
no steering wheel. There's no pedals. There's
no big red stop button. As far as we know that
allow passengers like this is operating improperly.
And so part of this is then this is my gas light
is and I'm not sure who it's at. Actually, is
it is it NHTSA? Is it Zoox? So NHTSA is saying,
hey, we've granted Zoox an application to forego
all of these federal motor vehicle safety standards
because this is an autonomous vehicle. And so
certain ones, I understand they make sense. I
don't have a driver. So they don't have a windshield
defroster. OK, I get it. You don't have a human
driver, but. They allow them to pass. Still,
how do passengers see out of the vehicle? Sure.
They can get out safely, right? Excellent point.
I didn't think of that. But so, Michael, I have
very specific questions for you. Ready? Ready
for the quiz? OK, what is FMVSS number 201? FMVSS
number 201. Does that apply to autonomous vehicles?
It doesn't. Sure. I don't see why it wouldn't.
It is. It is. You know, it's the 200 series of.
Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards is the
Occupant Protection Series, which typically pose
less of a problem for autonomous vehicle makers
if they're using vehicles that have traditional
configurations that are covered by the Federal
Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. We saw with the
Zoox, you know, they have these. Do they have
side facing seats yet? I think they might. And
they have kind of like a new. system of airbags
i forget what it was i think it's one of those
airbags that kind of pops out and surrounds your
body in some way that's you know not been used
traditionally i don't know you know if there
are any safety standards that can you know cover
that situation so that's that's that's that's
kind of like an issue that I don't think anyone
knows what's going to happen here, you know,
until a Zoox gets in a crash and we see all those
things perform. And I'm assuming they've done
a little, I think they had done a little crash
testing. Sure. They've done a lot of simulation
on those features, but when you're talking about
novel seating configurations and. protecting
people who are not facing forward or, you know,
in the traditional ways in which the regulations
cover, you know, I think that's going to be an
issue. I'm not sure, you know, I'm not sure that
they can totally. certified to the current occupant
protection standards, given some of the seating
configurations here. Now, this doesn't apply
to folks like Waymo, who are using traditional
vehicles and configurations and can certify their
seating systems to the FMDSS. But I don't know.
I don't know. If I was starting an autonomous
vehicle company today, I would not be creating
other headaches for myself. trying to be cool
and provide different seating systems and all
this other stuff where you're not really sure
how these vehicles are going to perform, especially
in, you know, higher speed collisions. Yeah.
So what I took away from their exemption was
they're exempt from 201 and 208. And these are
both. protections in interior impact, and occupant
crash protections. Now, I don't know. I want
to be a vehicle that has occupant crash protection.
And part of this, and I'm going to quote from
NHTSA's, NHTSA's analysis of whether Zoox vehicles
provide an overall safety level at least equal
to the overall safety level of a vehicle that
complies with all applicable FMVSS compares Zoox
vehicles to a vehicle that would be identical
except for compliance with the standards for
Zoox sought exemption. So my read of that is
saying this vehicle is as safe as another vehicle
that doesn't comply with these things. Is that
what I'm taking away? No, it's backward. I mean,
essentially what you have to prove to get a temporary
exemption is that even though you don't meet
the federal motor vehicle safety standard, your
vehicle is just as safe as vehicles that do,
right? How do you prove that? Exactly. And that's
been the number one problem. I think for NHTSA
in their attempt to kind of loosen some of the
exemption standards, that's the number one question.
It goes back to something we talk about a lot
here, which is, you know, how do you define safe?
How do you, you know, how do you dig at whether
something is as safe as another thing, especially
when you don't have range of data showing the
crash performance of those vehicles in the real
world? Can you? I mean, can NHTSA even make a
judgment here that's valid when you're essentially
comparing everything that we have and the data
that we have on other vehicles to this new vehicle
that really hasn't shown us any type of real
world safety performance? So part of this exemption
is NHTSA is also writing a business case for
Zoox. They're saying we had to grant these exemptions
because they wouldn't be able to commercially
deploy these. They wouldn't be able to. That's
the nonsense here. That's the heart of my gaslight
of doing this, that my gaslight is NHTSA is saying
that, hey, we had to do all this for safety,
but it's really a business case thing. And we're
going to let them get rid of things like occupant
crash protection because, you know, Amazon guy's
got to turn a buck. He's poor. This all plays
into the entire gaslight that we've been hearing
for years now from the industry. Right. Is that
regulation? and the current regulatory landscape,
which is incredibly minimal, right? I mean, you've
got California pushing some fairly sensible tracking
of AVs, but then you have a lot of other states
who are virtually doing nothing to ensure AV
safety and doing everything they can to ensure
AV deployment. Essentially, the AV industry wants
that to be the standard across the United States.
That's why they've continued. to push for preemption
and every piece of legislation they've supported
around AVs. They do not want states telling them
what to do. And they keep claiming that this
is stifling innovation. But frankly, I haven't
seen that, right? I mean. Autonomous vehicles
have been, you know, especially the ones that
already comply with federal motor vehicle safety
standards like Waymo have been, you know, engaged
and slowly rolling out and testing their product
for many years now. I mean, I don't see this
as stifling them. I see it as the slow move of
technology, whether it's AI enabled or not. integrating
it safely into society by making sure that it
works before we do so. I mean, essentially, the
Department of Transportation here is saying,
we just want to eliminate this patchwork regulatory
landscape that's, quote, stifling innovation
without any evidence that it is. And it just
seems like the DOT is trying to provide AV companies
with or support the idea that this technology
can move at the speed that investors want it
to versus at the speed of safety, which is going
to be a much slower and iterative process that
I ultimately think is going to have to happen
here. I mean, we're seeing more and more issues
piling up now as more AVs hit the road. And they're
not even remotely at the scale they're talking
about. When they get to those scales, the issues
are going to be... flying fast and frequent.
And, you know, at that point, you know, I'm concerned
that we may have let, you know, the genie out
of the bottle and there's no going back. Kind
of like what we've done, you know, with level
two systems and Tesla, where it's pretty clear
they're not safe enough for humans to be operating
on full self -driving overall. There are some
significant problems that have been raised there.
They haven't been addressed, whether it's the
driver monitoring issues, whether it's, you know,
the cameras not being able to pick up the environment.
NHTSA didn't crack down on Tesla. They didn't
put down regulations that could permit this problem
in the future. And now the entire industry is
adopting that approach. And that's... So essentially
what could happen here, you're basically seeing
regulations be held up for years and years and
years while the industry continues to push guidance,
which NHTSA is also pushing here. We have no
guarantees that this partnership with the SAE
is going to generate anything, if at all. And
if it does, it's probably going to be industry
favorable product. So this is all just a mess.
I mean, this is just essentially what it is,
is the Trump administration aligning with aligning
with industry and investors and saying, we're
going to shove this down your throat, whether
it's safe or not, whether you need it or not,
and whether your city wants it or not. Could
it be stifling innovative new ways to injure
passengers? Could that be the innovation that
they're worried about stifling? I don't understand
the innovation stifling. It's just this constant
refrain from the industry with little evidence
to back it up. Of course, not being able to deploy
unsafe vehicles on the road and make a lot of
money off of them is stifling your capital, right?
It's stifling the money you're going to make.
But to claim that it's stifling innovation when
a big part of innovation is making sure it's
safe. for humans and safe on the roads. I just
I can't buy that argument at all. I mean, the
only thing that's being stifled are the dreams
of people who want to put unsafe vehicles on
the road now versus taking the time to get them
right. Fred, what is it called when corporations
basically run the government? What would you
call that? I would call that I'd call it Fred's
muted his microphone. I'll perhaps play some
Wagner to inspire him. No, I'm trying to recover.
I think that's called fascism. There we go for
the win. All right. Show's over. Yeah, but we
do have an expression in New England for the
situation Michael described. We like to call
it bullshit. All right. That's that's that's
you know, that's the alternate name for this
podcast. That is good. OK, so that's my gas.
We're not going to jump to your gas lights just
yet because, Michael, you're on this this thread
and we're going to get to this about. So about
these bills going through Congress right now
that are trying to get up the one in particular,
the Self -Drive Act. And I'm going to quote from
Politico right now. But industry has already
coalesced around the Self -Drive Act, a separate
proposal by Rep. Bob Latta from Ohio that would
mandate that AV automakers prove to NHTSA that
their vehicles follow traffic laws and disclose
their vehicle safety limitations. The bill initially
guarded bipartisan support, but later lost the
backing of Representative Dingell and ultimately
advanced by a slim margin at subcommittee. So,
Michael. Now, this what's wrong with if this
is going to mandate that AV automakers have to
prove to NHTSA that their vehicles follow safety,
because further down this article, there's a
man reading. Yeah, that's a bad reading of the
law. The self -drive act does not mandate anything
like that. Essentially, it says if you develop
a safety case based on, you know. the guidance
that's being provided. If you develop it, then
you can't be messed with essentially by state
authorities, right? It literally trades preemption
and basically companies can be irresponsible
in their local deployments if they develop a
safety case, which isn't, you know, at this point,
isn't going to be. tied to any standard. It's
not going to be tied to the UL or ISO or any
other standard to make sure that their safety
case is being developed and accurate. It's not
going to be turned into the secretary so that
NHTSA can check the safety case in any way. I
mean, it was a terribly drafted way of going
about it. It's clearly something the industry
favors because then all they have to do is say,
yeah, secretary, I've got a safety case. And
now San Francisco can't do anything to me when
I screw up and block their streets all night.
Right. It's a terrible formulation. And all the
preemption formulations that we've seen in AV
legislation over the past decade have been bad.
You know, I. And I'll say it again, I've probably
said this a thousand times, I think the only
way to get this done is a slow, iterative process
where you're taking into account all the problems
at the local level, all the problems at the state
level, and working with those folks to make sure
that you're operating safely on the street, right?
It's not a matter of running to the federal government
and running to politicians and crying that we're
not able to make enough money yet when your product's
not mature, right? It's not ready. And this focus
on eliminating the safety part of things and
eliminating the regulations that make you do
the proof and make you work on the ground with.
cities and states and people that they're trying
to brush aside. So it's I don't know, it's it's
it's just a bad formulation. It's not the way
that I think. The federal law should work when
new technologies are involved. I think it's dangerous
and it's a bad approach and it's the least safe
approach. You know, I think getting everyone
involved and not just running to the federal
government and trying to eliminate a patchwork
of regulations that are probably doing a lot
for safety on the ground is the way to go. So
traditionally with auto laws and auto safety
laws, each state has its own little subset and
things they can do and make it for their local.
environments well essentially road safety issues
and yeah like in the in the past so nits is since
this you know late 60s has had the essentially
the authority on vehicle performance and vehicles
direct vehicle safety issues that are involving
the technology that's being deployed they you
know states can't pass laws that um you know
make a manufacturer you know, change its airbag
system or change, you know, any part of the car
that might be regulated by the government, including
brake hoses and other things where there's federal
motor vehicle safety standards. But states can
regulate where they've traditionally regulated,
which is in the area of driver competency, driver
testing, driver licensing. Like that is something
that has. been combined in an autonomous vehicle,
right? You've got the old school performance
and parts of a vehicle versus the new school,
like computer driver now that kind of sits on
the line of performance, right? It sits on the
line of safety performance and something that
the states have traditionally regulated. So it's
a shared, essentially a shared jurisdiction.
of states and cities and the federal government
there over the competency of the autonomous driver.
And what I think many of these companies want
to do is close that side for states. They don't
want states to be involved in evaluating the
competency of computer drivers, even while they're
evaluating the competency of human drivers. So
a lot of this is essentially trying to change
the law. in favor of AV companies. And, you know,
our take is obviously that you need to take everyone's
input and including the local authorities where
you're operating the vehicles. Great. I think
that that's really helpful for people to understand
that disconnect. So I've done my gaslight. Fred,
are you ready for your gaslight? I am. Great.
You know, we've given you all this time for vocal
exercises, time to rest. Okay, so I'm going to
infuriate all of my colleagues in the SAE, and
I am a member of the SAE itself, by nominating
the Automated Transportation Symposium, which
is a conference, kind of the high conclave of
the autonomous vehicle industry in the United
States. That meeting was held. Last week, week
before, something like that. And the title of
it is Building Trust for Infrastructure -Supported
Driving Automation. Excuse me, that's not, that's
one of the sessions. Building Trust. There's
another one, Forensic Crash Lab, Deconstructing
the Swiss Cheese Failure, Next Level for Emergency
Responders. Several peripheral activities associated
with safety. The point is, what's missing in
this conference? Okay, three days conference,
four day conference. What was missing from this?
They've got enough operational experience to
know where the problems are, at least some of
the problems. And they're putting their head
in the sand and not including that in the program
at all. So what's missing? Ethics of requiring
waiver of customer legal protections. when they're
using commercial vehicles that are not compliant
with FMVSS. They're not addressing ethics of
commercial AV operations without validating the
safety in all possible circumstances. There's
no discussion of Waymo bike crashes running into
a child or the T -Bone accident that recently
occurred in LA. There's no discussion of the
numerous Tesla lethalities. There's no recognition
of the fragility of the business case. and the
need for import protection for the AV industry
from the Chinese. There's no deconstruction of
any AV crash that involves AI to show root cause
determination, because basically you cannot.
AI is opaque to root cause determination. There's
no showing that the AV industry understands the
lessons from historical crashes and how industry
validates. that it will not be replicated in
commercial AVs. So it's just blank. You know,
it happened. We don't care. We don't have to.
We're the AV industry. Safety is the AV industry's
first priority. Why is there so little emphasis
on metrics that show the current state of safety,
the trajectory of steadily increasing safety
for the rapidly maturing AV industry, is what
they would say. And what is the goal? I mean,
aircraft can and do show that. Why not surface
vehicles? Why are they immune from the same kind
of transparency and requirements that we see
in commercial aviation, which is fabulously successful
from a safety perspective versus a really questionable
safety of the of the industry? So that's it.
I'm condemning the entire SAE and the ATS conference,
which is going to make me very popular. I'll
just bring up one more thing in relation to that.
I mean, you just need to look at some of the
promotional materials for the event and you see
who the sponsors are, right? It's Waymo, it's
Uber, it's Wabi, it's Torque Robotics, it's Qualcomm,
right? It's Zoox. So what do you expect? Right,
right. So it's an industry celebrating itself
and self -referential. Anyway, that's my nomination
for this week. That's good. I mean, you're going
after your own tribe. I really, I mean, I condemn
you for that. No, I commend you for that. It's
a slight dyslexia on my part there. The condemnation
comes later. Okay, great. Hey, and if you want
to celebrate industry, go to autosavvy .org and
click on Donate. What's the industry you're celebrating?
Fred's Condemnation. It's going to be an industry
-wide event. It's going to be sponsored by me.
I don't know what I'm saying. I'm hoping Michael
will jump in and just cut me off. I'm going to
jump in with my gas light here just to cut you
off. And I'm going to lead us into our next topic.
Yay! One of the stupidest ideas I've heard, although
I understand where it's coming from, freedom
cards. So Duffy proposed this this this week,
and it's one of the most nonsensical things I've
ever heard. It's clearly once again, Secretary
Duffy, you know, as we talked about in the last
month or so when it comes to some other issues,
catering to essentially a lot of political head
cases out there by proposing, you know. Absolutely
unsafe and unworkable safety car belts. You know,
in this situation, they're going after the fact
that some vehicles are connected and can transmit
your data to places you don't want them done.
And essentially, you know. Here's how they describe
it. Right. The right to just right to drive a
disconnected and non -automated vehicles. Right.
And so this would prohibit any federal. That's
the key part here. State, tribal or local authority
for mandating that vehicle sold or operating
on public roads be equipped with automated driving
systems or be capable of transmitting data wirelessly.
Right. So what this would allow for is a federal
law that splits our safety regulation down the
middle. and says you can't have, for instance,
you can't have vehicle -to -vehicle technology
if you don't have communication systems. You're
essentially saying we're going to build an entire
fleet of vehicles that won't comply with this,
which ruins the entire V2V safety plan, essentially.
Not only that, but there are going to be a number
of other... features that might safety features,
even working within the system that might need
connected features to operate. You know, I don't
think it's going to affect like backup cameras,
but, you know, you know. Automatic emergency
braking over the air updates are going to be
implicated here possibly. But a lot of the things
that we're seeing in vehicles like, and a lot
of the things we've talked about on the political
spectrum, like impairment detection. You know,
if you're going to have an appropriate impairment
detection system that not only just prevents
a drunk driver from starting the vehicle, but
actually reports them or, you know, gets actually
doing the work to get the drunk driver off the
road is one thing. A lot of different vehicle
systems are going to come with, I think, some
type of requirement that the vehicle is connected
in the future. Right now, automatic emergency
braking does not require that. And ultimately,
the problem here is not the fact that these safety
systems need to connect to the Internet and that
poses a problem. It's the fact that whoever is
collecting this data is not. protecting it or
selling it on, right? If we had a federal ban
on taking, you know, any type of data that can
be personalized to a human and to track them
or to evaluate their behavior driving or anything
like that, if a vehicle safety system needs that
information to make a safety determination at
the moment as to whether the driver's drunk,
distracted, speeding, whatever, then that data,
should not be part of what an automaker collects
and sells on. Essentially, there needs to be
a federal ban on selling that information or
passing that information on without the explicit
consent of whoever owns the vehicle and is operating
the vehicle. And that alleviates all of these
crazy surveillance claims. It prevents all of
the nonsense that's happened here that's getting
in the way of safety features being put into
vehicles. Because then you can. get a car that's
got v2v it's got automatic emergency braking
it's got advanced driver systems that need to
use connected features to make the vehicle more
safe but you have to ensure that that information
is not going to anyone else and the reason that's
not happening even though the solution seems
simple is because the automakers are completely
opposed to it because they want to make money
off your data you know that's it um and that's
what this is all about it's about It's about
essentially NHTSA and Duffy saying, we're not
going to do the hard thing here, which is tell
manufacturers they can't collect certain data
and pass it on. There essentially needs to be
a, I don't know what it would call, a Faraday
cage around. Personal information, driver's faces,
you know, what I'm doing in the car when nobody
else should be around and watching me, all the
things that the privacy advocates and some of
the other folks, the preppers are concerned with.
So this is just a bad way to go. I'm going to
stop now. I think I went longer than I've ever
gone on a gas light for that one. But Secretary
Duffy. Again, you're my Gaslight of the Week,
and I don't see that changing. I think Secretary
Duffy may beat Elon this year. Oh, so the first
piece we talked about basically was saying, NHTSA
saying, hey, we're going to let AVs come out
because we don't want to stifle innovation. But
what we just heard from you is they're saying,
we want to stifle innovation. We don't want connected
cars. We don't want that. So it's just stifle
innovation, but just don't stifle the innovation
we don't like or can't profit from. It's the
same nonsense that we keep hearing from the auto
industry. Oh, we've got cars that can do everything
for you and they're ready to go. And they're
just being stifled by regulation when it comes
to AVs. But when you look at things like. automatic
emergency braking over here which the industry
is still challenging the rule on um you know
you've got to be able to stop cars when they
see something 100 of the time if you are not
100 but as close as possible right um if if you
want those autonomous vehicles to function and
yet when it comes to the consumer vehicle over
here you're saying you can't do that so it's
just complete in terms of tech. They're trying
to pretend that AVs are somehow on this other
level and don't need to be regulated for this.
I don't know. It's just mind -boggling. I mean,
this is a tough one to judge this week because,
I mean, okay, Michael, you don't get a point
for going after Duffy again because you've used
him too many times, but... It's just too easy,
the dumb shit they come up with. But the cognitive
dissonance, on the other hand, I mean, that we're
highlighting, that's point -worthy. At the same
time, Fred's wearing a headband. So, but no,
Fred's weekly, but Fred, but, but Fred, you know,
he went to burn down his own house in SAE. So
I, I mean, I've checked with the judges. We've
verified and I have to give it to Fred this week
is the winner. Yeah. I mean, it's about damn
time. You say that each time you win, it's about
damn time. I've never won before. You're never
going to win again. Can you, you know, you're
not focusing. i have a short memory great say
for people who don't have a short memory go to
autosafety .org click on donate you can do it
while you sit in the piggly wiggly parking lot
bam you can't do that um so continuing this thread
of the freedom cars and i don't want uh all this
technology these people remind me of uh people
who go to like the airport and the tsa line and
they're like you know there's that tsa camera
that takes your photo and you can opt out it
reminds me of those people like i'm gonna opt
out They already have your driver's license.
They have your passport. They already have all
of your biometric data. You complain the TSA's
security theater, what you're doing is theater.
They already have this. Anyway, let's continue
with the article from the Wall Street Journal
talking about a bunch of Luddites. No, it's a
bunch of people. It's titled, These Drivers Are
Taking Extreme Measures to Avoid New Car Technology.
And it's an article talking about how basically
people who are upset with That's how I'm going
to put it. These are people who will, I'm going
to keep driving a really old car. And as we know,
the older a car is, the less safe it is. I don't
care because we know new technology helps save
things. But these people don't want it. I mean,
there's some interesting, legit complaints I
get in here. I'm going to quote from the article,
quoting from one of the people they interviewed.
He says, if I get in my hot car and I want some
air conditioning, I just want to turn a knob
and have a whole. have cold air come out. There's
this fatigue of having to learn one more new
thing. We've talked about that. No, Michael,
you're going to make me skip over it. We've talked
about that with the capacitive buttons and people
want knobs and dials back in their car. I'm on
board with that, but that doesn't mean you should
still be driving around in a 2006 Scion. If it
was 2007, you should not be driving around in
a 2006 Scion, okay? Do they still make those?
I wonder if you should drive in a 2026. Yeah,
I don't think you should drive it at all. But
people are basically saying, so this is another
woman. Look, I'm sympathetic to a lot of this,
right? Cars cost a lot of money. Way too much
money. Yeah, a lot of people can't afford them.
Buying old cars is the way to go. You know, when
you buy an old car, you're going to have a lot
less chance of having recalls and other issues
that are created by software, right? And maybe
electronics. At the same time, you're not going
to have a backup camera. You're not going to
have AEB. Even if you do have some form of AEB,
it's going to work at really low speeds and not
be that effective. You're not going to have blind
spot monitoring. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot
of things you're not going to have. And I get
not going after those things if you can't afford
it, right? But if you're capable of buying a
new car and you're avoiding it for... These reasons,
I don't know. I mean, I could certainly be willing
to avoid a vehicle that's got all the touchscreen
issues that you're talking about though, right?
Because I like buttons. Of course, much easier.
I don't want to be scrolling through a menu to
defrost my windshield when I need to see out
of it. So I get it to an extent, but at the same
time, there's kind of this undercurrent here
of the prepper mentality. I'll bring that up
again, where people are just kind of, I don't
know. They are definitely being technology avoided.
In fact, one of the folks here says, I don't
want my face and heart rate to be monitored by
my car. Well, if I was falling asleep and my
car could turn itself off and pull it over the
side of the road safely if I fell asleep, then
hell yeah, I want my face and my heart rate to
be monitored by my car, right? As long as that
data is not being passed on to TMZ, I'm good.
Do you think TMZ, they've gone to the G -list
celebrities? I think they will take anything
they can get. They'll take anything they can
get. But that's the thing that people are scared
of. you know, their behaviors that they were
that they were doing while they thought they
were in a private situation to be made public.
Sure. But OK, so further down in the article,
this quoting from another woman in the articles
and it's quoting says her beef is with the technology
to design to help to help drivers drive while
going down a tick tock rabbit hole on car tech.
Right at that point, the woman should have just
stopped, put her phone away. Yeah. She was alarmed
by one clip in which a woman of similar short
stature. said her car decelerated after she briefly
slouched. The eye scanner, she said, mistakenly
clocked the woman as asleep. Okay, so I have
a number of questions. One, don't use TikTok
for anything, ever. Two, if you're that short
and if you slouch that much so that camera inside
can't see you, your car seat's too low to begin
with. You can't see over the steering wheel.
You shouldn't be driving at all. But more importantly,
don't use TikTok, ever. Follow us on TikTok.
Are we on TikTok? No, we're not. We could be.
I don't think we can produce anything short enough,
punchy enough. And frankly, we're not getting
any younger. Hey, not with that attitude. Yeah.
So with that, let's jump over to the wonderful
world of what's your segment called, Fred? Fred
clears his throat. Slight claps. Tower of Fred.
Here we go. That's right. Tell Fred. Thanks.
Did you just see the... It's not the Iliad. Never
mind. Go on. So I want to talk about robo -taxi
threats. The world talks about the Panglossian
future and how everything's going to be great
once AVs take over and everybody will be safe
and everything will be wonderful. So I got a
couple of things I want you to consider. So here's
a situation. An AV with a passenger. suddenly
stops. Someone taps on the window saying they're
police and they say, open up. So what do you
do? Let's talk about risk. There are two factors
in risk, frequency and the consequence. So what's
the risk of this situation? According to the
International Standards Organization, if it's
safe, they define safety as the absence of unreasonable
risk. So is this a safe interaction? uh because
of the risk well what do you think anthony what
do you think michael is this safe depends what
i described so far depends what i look like if
i'm gonna open the door for the police and michael
um you know i i don't i i guess every situation
is different it's hard to say one way or the
other thing is this a real did like a police
car with flashing lights pull me over well let's
let me add a couple more details okay The passenger
is female. And the passenger is a minor. She's
riding under a Waymo minor pass. So she's in
the Phoenix area. Yeah. And she's blind. Okay.
So somebody else accepted the Waymo terms of
service for her since she's a minor. And so if
something bad happens without her participation,
she will have no right to sue for damages. She
makes the wrong choice about admitting the unknown
person wrapping on her window. So did I forget
to mention that there are no provisions for her
to contact remote assistance because she's blind
and cannot access the touchscreen? So are we
still in the safe regime? Is there a, you know,
is there an audio powered option there, you know,
beyond the touchscreen? Well, Waymo says no.
Waymo says they're not. continuously monitoring
your behavior, and they've only got so many people
to go around to monitor the performance. Did
I mention that the remote assistance is staffed
by a Waymo contractor, insulating Waymo from
legal consequences if the passenger is attacked?
Because we don't know who this person is, right?
Did I mention she's alone in the Waymo? There's
no one there to help or manage the situation.
And this can't happen in a regular vehicle that's
not autonomous because the passengers and mine
are presumably not able to drive. So there's
not an analogous situation. And if it's a taxi,
there's a human driver there. There'd be a human
driver who would be able to assess the situation
and at least advise the passenger on what to
do. What's interesting about this is, what about
the risk now? With all these factors in here,
and somebody rapping on the window that she cannot
identify, saying that they're the police, and
open up the damn door. Is this safe? Because
safe is absence of unreasonable risk. So let's
pretend there's a way for this passenger to contact
Waymo support, because we've seen this before.
So they contact Waymo support. Well, how do they
do that? Because in order to contact support,
you have to use a touchscreen, and she's blind,
so she can't see the touchscreen. Let's pretend
that Waymo's app is designed for the visually
impaired, so it's on their phone, and they've
got some sort of interface there. It's designed
correctly, and this person can scroll through
it, find the contact help button. Let's pretend
they manage to do that. Then it's... Whatever
delay for Waymo to get there while this person
saying, I'm a cop, it keeps banging on the window.
The Waymo support says, what's the problem? And
they go through this five minute thing. And then
it's contacting the police officer outside. Prove
to me that you're a police officer, as we've
seen them do. And this is a longer interaction.
So now I imagine the person with the gun and
a grudge is getting angrier and angrier and angrier.
This is not safe. What if it's not a cop? What
if it's somebody who wants to attack her? Exactly.
That's what I'm saying. If a cop or not, that
person is getting angrier and angrier and angrier.
This is not a safe environment. So here's the
point. Is this safe? Does this sound like a safe
situation? Because Waymo talks about their safety,
right? Safety is their first priority. So is
she at higher risk alone in the vehicle that
can be easily stopped by a third party? and threatened
by the third party? Yes. Or would she be safer
with another human being in the car who can help
mediate the situation? The law kind of comes
into play here in some respects because essentially
here you've got an intervening criminal action
taking place that could absolve the vehicle maker
or operator from any type of liability. It's
just an old principle in law that if someone
is committing a crime, particularly here, a potential
violent crime that threatens safety, is it is
it is it on Waymo or is it on the perpetrator?
Well, the as I understand, I mean, can any car
really protect us in this situation? Say it's
not a minor, you know, go back to the regular
car. I mean, I guess if you're a driver. In a
regular car, you have the option of, you know,
running the person over, leaving the scene without
running them over somehow, you know, escaping.
I think, you know, it's obviously a little more
difficult, I think, for Waymos to do that since
they're, I don't think they have programmed them
to, you know, escape humans. But in the interest
of time, okay, let's just look at the question,
is it safe? Waymo says safety is the first priority.
Have they delivered a system today which would
be safe in this situation? No. I'm going to say
no. I would say no. However, the question of
whether that is a transportation safety issue
or a different, you know, this isn't a driving
issue. This isn't a crash issue. This is you're
basically saying the autonomous vehicle needs
to. be able to look at a human and determine
whether they have good or evil intent. I don't
know if that's ever going to be possible. It's
a pick -up -and -drop -off issue. Excuse me for
interrupting, but it's a pick -up -and -drop
-off issue. It's a real -world issue. It was
not discussed at ATS. So let me give you another
situation. This was reported on LinkedIn, actually.
This is a person who was with his elderly father.
He called a Waymo. First time he's ever interacted
with a Waymo. His father has mobility issues,
right? This is real world. The Waymo stopped
500 yards away. So they had to go. And we know
that Waymos don't always show up at the right
place in the right time. Neither does Uber. Neither
does anybody who's using Google Maps as a reference,
despite their insidification that's going on
right now. But anyway, in this particular instance.
Google stopped for pickup 500 yards away, which
was a burden for this guy who has mobility issues.
Then at the end of the trip, it also stopped
500 yards away from their intended destination.
It happened to be at the bottom of a steep hill,
which separated where they were dropped off from
where they wanted to be. So, again, there's no
way to negotiate with a computed destination
or verbally correct. the destination, which would
be trivial with a human driver. So, again, let
me ask you, given the safety issues associated
with forcing somebody with mobility limitations
to climb a steep hill, is this safe? Has Waymo
delivered a safe system? I mean, I would say,
again, this is kind of a non -traffic safety
issue, but you do have a choice not to walk 500
yards and get in a Waymo, right? Well, I mean,
if they're not providing the service that you
expect, you don't you don't I mean, you're not
forced to walk the 500 yards and to do that.
Well, you're going to get billed for it if you
don't get in the car because you didn't show
up for your ride. Sure. Of course you are. I
mean, Ubers and whatnot. I mean, I would think
if you said, hey, you know, I've got an elderly
father who can't walk 500 yards. I doubt Lamo
is going to follow through on that. Right. You're
adorable. So the question is, remember, the standard
for safe is absence of unreasonable risk. Is
dropping an elderly person with mobility issues
at the bottom of a hill 500 yards away from their
destination, which is uphill, is that safe? Given
the definition that they're using. I'm going
to say no again. That is not safe. Michael? I
mean, this is a non... It's a non -traffic safety
issue. It's different. There are choices here.
It's not like once you're in the car and you
have no control over its trajectory and it gets
in a crash, you have the choice not to ride in
a Waymo if it's not going to provide the service
that you want. But you don't know when you're
going to do it. Yeah, but if you get in the car
and you don't have that 500 -yard thing at the
start and you don't know there's already a problem,
you get in the car and it's going to drop you
off where it drops you off. And I guess the question
then, yeah, I guess the question then is, is
dropping you off, is it a safety, maybe? Absent
of unreasonable risk. It can be a safety issue.
Because they could drop you off at some place
that is unsafe. And we've seen that before in
the past with Waymos dropping people off at random
locations in the middle of a street. So my point
is about, and I can terminate the discussion,
this is a safety discussion. that was completely
absent from the ATS conclave, where they should
be talking about the real -world issues associated
with the operation of AVs, particularly with
commercial passengers. And then the final question
here is, are these people, like other AV -related
deaths and injuries, just acceptable collateral
damage on the path to the Panglossian goal of
safer roads through AV technology? The price
we've got to pay for this mythical future where
everybody's going to be safe and everything will
be wonderful and the taxi drivers will have all
found alternative careers. You're a glass is
half empty kind of guy, aren't you, Fred? I'm
a glass is the wrong size kind of guy. I mean,
this is an interesting topic because it kind
of. This kind of falls into the area of the kind
of things that NHTSA wouldn't typically regulate.
That's why I keep making this distinction of,
is it a traffic -related crash or problem there
versus another type of issue that might be...
I don't know if this is an issue that could be
regulated at the local level or something like
that. My opinion is if you cannot guarantee a
safe drop -off, You do not have a safe system.
And in the interest of time, I'll just end it
there. But I think, Fred, this is a good discussion
because you made one thing that I'm going to
disagree with vehemently. You said if there was
a driver there, you know, disagreeing with a
human driver would be trivial. And you can say,
hey, move this 500 yards or drive me up this
road. And I'm going to use a data point of one.
I was in Grenada. And I needed the driver to
go up this very steep hill. And the guy said
no. And I was like, why not? He's like, that
road's too steep. I know. I drive up it every
day. Maybe it was because of the added weight
in the vehicle. Hey, I'm not a big guy. Come
on. This is New York, right? Because I was trying
to make a conversation with him. And I said,
hey, what about the New York Giants? What do
you think about them? He said, I wouldn't. I'm
not interested in football. But if I were interested
in football. I wouldn't like them because the
New York Giants, they're in New Jersey. Who the
hell wants them? Oh, boy. Okay. A couple more
things just before we jump into recalls. Fred,
I mean, bravo on that. That was very good. That
was my favorite towel to date. Thank you. So
when my friends in SAE crucified me. Do they
have a standard for, do they have a crucifixion
standard? They do. Absence of unreasonable bullshit.
Yeah, exactly. Oh, come on. Phil Copeland's a
part of the SAE. He won't crucify you. I mean,
don't get us wrong. There are a lot of great
people in the SAE. It's just that their overall
bent is going to always align with industry versus
consumer safety. It always has. Sure. Yeah. So
this is something we didn't get to a couple weeks
ago. This is consumer mail. Somebody wrote in.
And I apologize for us not responding to this
earlier. The question was, have you guys ever
discussed how AVs behave when confronted by funeral
possessions, which in my state at least do not
stop for red lights or stop signs? I've never
been in a state where a funeral possession, everyone
just lets it go through typically if there's
a cop there or not. I was in possession once
in Long Island where people just kept cutting
it off. But it's Long Island. They're a bunch
of jerks. And I think, Michael, your response
was that state laws vary significantly. Right.
Oh, yeah. Very, very significantly around this.
But ultimately, I think one of the biggest problems
that that occur that we would face with AVs and
funeral processions would be the the hand signals.
First of all, it's one of those situations like
we talk about with school buses where a stop
sign doesn't always, you know, it doesn't mean
the same thing as a stop sign at a four way stop
and that kind of thing. I think you kind of run
into some similar problems here. And you also
run into problems of police using hand signals,
which we know these vehicles struggle with, and
gestures. And just cars don't behave normally
during funeral processions. They're ignoring
stoplights. They're, you know, they're basically
empowered to break the rules of the road. And
you have to have vehicles that can recognize
that, which is, you know, probably why Google
as early as I think 2018, 2020 filed patents
for how to detect and respond to. to funeral
processions for autonomous vehicles. So something
that they're working on and considering, it's
just that I don't know that they have fully gotten
their head around it because there are 50 different
state laws and you have the additional complication
of interpreting human signals in there. Yeah,
and yeah, it looks like Waymo does have the patent
for this method. Moving on. And I think there
have been a couple of... situations created by
this where Waymo's pulled out into procession
or something like that over the years. So there
definitely been some real world complications
that this presents. Well, thanks, listener, for
writing it in. Good question. And now we got
to talk about Tesla. And this could have actually
been my gaslight. This is from Electric talking
about how Tesla at full self -driving version
14 Lite is causing the hardware version 3 computers
to fail. What that all means is basically Older
vehicle Teslas, they're getting new software.
It's a reduced software instruction set for their
new cars. And it's causing the computers to overheat
and no longer work. And so I'm going to quote,
the more serious reports go beyond throttling.
So that'd be the software throttling and saying,
hey, we can't run this program now. And some
Tesla owners reporting that the computer fully
shuts down and needs to be replaced, according
to Tesla Service. Now, my gas light on this,
I'm going to do another gas light, is electric.
Their quote is, I don't know what people expect.
Hardware 3 is now seven -year -old hardware.
Fair enough. But I think what people expect is
when they bought this car seven years ago, Elon
Musk said, I'm going to make it fully autonomous
and a robo -taxi for you. That's what people
expect. People expect that the guy who runs the
company was not lying to them. That's my takeaway.
Yeah, my takeaway is this is something that...
it just points to obsolescence of, you know,
software and hardware enabled vehicles over time.
You're just, you're not going to be able, the
promise that Elon made about these vehicles achieving
full autonomy. collecting fares for their owners
is never going to happen. And now they're trying
to essentially retrofit new hardware that these
old computers can't keep up with. It's just a
mess. And I think it was inevitable in a lot
of ways. And, you know, the more bullshit that
comes out of Musk's mouth. the more people buy
into this stuff. And this is why this problem
exists. And a follow -up from past where we've
talked about, we've talked about the problem
with Ubers and the problem of sexual assault.
The vehicles, we're gonna link to an article
from the New York Times, which Uber publicly
comes out and says, we never blame the survivors.
It's, we're always, safety is our number one
thing. We, sexual violence is never the survivor's
fault. That's an exact quote from Uber. But we
find out in - Not an arbitration because that's
private. We find out in public court cases that
Uber's lawyers are doing the exact same thing
and asking questions like, were you wearing heels
or boots or flats? Tell me about your childhood.
Do you feel abandoned by your father? What's
your past sexual history? So in court, they're
going after these victims and doing the exact
opposite of what they say. Just think about that
the next time you're in an Uber. Oh, yeah. And
they're donating to sexual assault organizations
to pretend that they're doing the right thing.
Meanwhile, they're raking the victims down in
court. For me, this raises the obvious question
of what would happen? What would have happened
if Uber had gotten its way from the start and
been, you know, shuttling all of these folks
off into arbitration? I mean, what kind of questions
do you think they're going to ask in a closed
court where none of this stuff ever makes the
public? I think they did. I think they were forced.
to take them out of arbitration because yeah
so they started saying like if uber had gotten
its way from the start i mean this this would
probably be even worse because none of us would
have any insight into what's going on because
that's everything in arbitration would be sealed
what's the uh there's a so there's some sort
of tort around the the tort of unintentional
harm or something like that is that what it is
something Because I feel like that's what these
lawyers are doing. It's like a tort of an emotional
distress or where you're knowingly putting someone
through emotional trauma. Anyway, that has nothing
to do with a tort of intentional harm. A tort
of intentional harm. Maybe that's it. But yeah,
don't believe the hype is what it comes down
to. And with that, hey, have you gone to autosave
.org and click on donate? Transitions are not
great. Let's go do recalls. Oh, boy. First up,
Mercedes -Benz. Holy cow, 310 ,667 vehicles.
2019. There's 70 different vehicles. Oh, my God,
I'm looking at this. Yeah, they've all got dumb
names, like the GLB35, the GLA, the AMG, the
4MATIC. These are all 2024s to 2020s. They're
all over the place. Oh, my. This is a long list.
This is surprising because Mercedes generally
doesn't have a Ford -sized recall. If you've
got a Mercedes -Benz that's been made in the
last seven years, take a look. Yeah, it's a lot
of them. Essentially, the electronic parking
brake doesn't come on when you open the door
while the vehicle's not in park. Yeah, the housing
material for the door lock microswitch might
be more susceptible to moisture permeation. which
basically means water is getting in there and
rotting part of this or degrading part of this.
Should the micro switch fail on the driver door,
the electronic parking brake and or auto park
feature connected to the driver door opening
may not engage automatically. As a consequence,
this vehicle may roll away. It looks like everybody
just has to have their lock replaced. I think
that's just basically a new lock with a new micro
switch that's not going to have this issue. And
owners should hear about that in mid -September.
I mean, this probably shouldn't be a problem
for Mercedes owners. Most of them carry around
like blocks of wood they can use as chocks on
the tire, right? That's pretty standard, right?
No? All right. Next up, Ford. There we go. 86
,543 vehicles. 23 to 25 Mustang Mach -E. Rear
side quarter window glass trim may detach from
the vehicle while driving. Oh, and they're blaming
the assembly jig at a supplier's facility decreased
the time required to install the trim piece.
And unfortunately, that was an insufficient time
for a trim primer used during the assembly process
to cure, resulting in inefficient bond. Customers
may notice the trim is loose. They may also experience
wind noise, squeak, and or rattle as they drive.
So their assembly company said, hey, we've got
a faster way to do this. And they didn't think.
Okay, cool. How do we attach this? Oh, yeah.
Sealant. The sealant will prime quicker. Prime
quicker? Sure. Why not? It's so unfair. I mean,
Boeing had panels that popped out, too, and everybody
got all excited about it. Yeah. I mean, this
problem's been going on with Ford for a while
now on a lot of different vehicles. they've got
a lot of work to do to make sure that this doesn't
continue happening. I can't even remember how
many of these we've covered. I know we've covered
a couple or three of them on the Ford Explorers
from the past few years, but they need to get
their sealants straight. Oh, but they need to
get a lot of things straight. Next up, Ford.
Oh my God. 47 ,587 vehicles. The 23 to 26 F -250SD.
Same year as F -150. Is that the same years?
Nope. The 2021 to 23 F -150s. Affected vehicles
equipped with accessory protocol interface module
software prior to version 2 .4 .12 may display
the camera view menu over the rear view image
in reverse. This is a new one. I'm going to give
them this. You put in reverse, you're expecting
that rear view camera image, and instead you're
getting a menu. Hey, would you like to listen
to Microsoft Sync or whatever nonsense? Yeah,
and this is kind of, you know, two titans. Coming
together in the form of rear view camera recalls
and Ford. Yeah. So. Oh, boy. That one's going
to be it looks like there's an interim notification
on this. So owners aren't going to be able to
get this fixed immediately. But it looks like
by sometime in October, they'll get their final
remedy out. Rare entrance to the recall roundup.
Toyota 2381 vehicles. Oh, this is for. OK, so
this is confusing. It says for the. joints and
safety systems. This is a curtain shield airbag.
Yeah, this is not OEM equipment, or at least
it doesn't come installed on your vehicle. This
is for people who get replaced in airbags after
a crash or some other thing. Oh, the subject
curtain shield airbag assemblies are service
replacement parts intended for use in certain
Tacoma vehicles. It may not have been properly
secured to its mounting bracket in the assembly.
Portions of it may not reach their intended positions
in the case of a crash. Okay, so you've already,
these curtain side airbags have been replaced
in your car probably because you've already been
in a crash? Yeah, you've been in a crash or there's
some other issue that requires replacing the
airbag. Usually, I think it's going to be a crash.
Oh, well, the next one is the same. No, the next
one is basically the same thing. Toyota 1 ,737
vehicles for the curtain airbags. And this is
for the Toyota Tundra double cab and crew max
vehicles. Same thing. Yeah, you'll see. And this
is an e -recall. So that's instead of 26V like
our normal ones, this is an E for equipment,
which essentially is usually going to mean replacing
equipment for a vehicle. Okay. And those owners
should be aware that they've had these replaced
and they'll get notified. They should. And, you
know, I think this recall looks like the final
owner notification is in September. So it's not
going to be too long of a wait for folks to get
this fixed. I mean, I think you have to be fairly
concerned about driving a vehicle with a A misplaced
curtain airbag? With this problem, yeah. I'd
like to point out, I was watching some show recently,
and there was a crash, and it was a modern vehicle,
and they had the front airbags go off, but none
of the side airbags. Come on, guys. I know we
wouldn't see the actors then, but come on, really?
They had side airbags. I mean, was it a frontal
collision where the side airbags? It was a corner.
It was kind of the left front corner. That should
have sent off everything because the car rolled
and blah, blah, blah. Anyway, last recall. Chrysler.
Chrysler saying, hey, Ford, we can outdo you.
1 .2 million vehicles. The 2019 to 2026 Ram 1500.
Anchorage's attachment hardware and attachment
bolts should be tested simultaneously, loading
them in accordance with the Apple plug. What
happened here? Reduced load management by the
seat buckle may result in injury to vehicle occupants
in certain types of driving conditions. So the
seat buckles don't work. The seatbelt buckles?
Essentially. Oh, that's not good. Second row
seatbelt buckle anchors weren't installed properly.
So you're going to have, you know, obviously
if you get in a crash and your seatbelts aren't
installed properly, you're in trouble. So it's
really important to get this one checked out.
And it looks like owners are going to hear about
it either. starting August 18th to September
24th. So they've got kind of a phased period
of notification for owners. Well, you know, second
row seatbelt technology is new. It's, you know,
they're, you know, it's a relatively new thing.
They got to cut them some slack, get them used
to this. Yeah. You know, seatbelts, bolts, bolts
are a new thing. They got to torque them. This
is disgusting. That's it. All right. Yeah. That's
a big, that's a big recall. That is. That's a,
that's an embarrassing. I mean, not everybody's
got a, you know, it looks like they got an inspection
here. So they're going to inspect your buckle
to make sure if it was installed properly or
not. But so you may not be getting a fix. You're
going to be getting verification that the buckle
is properly installed. Shameful. And with that,
ladies and gentlemen, thanks for listening. We'll
be back next week. Ta -ta. Thank you. Goodbye.
For more information, visit www .autosafety .org.