The War on Self-Driving Cars Will Kill People

Car accidents kill 100 Americans every day.

But now an amazing solution is available: self-driving cars.

Robotaxis like Google-owned Waymo, for example.

Passengers who try them like them. Wherever robotaxis are allowed, ridership increases fast. Two years ago, there were 50,000 trips per week—today 500,000.

“The car did a better job than if somebody was driving!” says a passenger in my new video.

Waymo claims its cars are 10 times safer than human-driven ones. I wouldn’t believe that if insurance companies, with their own money at stake, didn’t agree.

Reinsurance News reports Waymos had an “88 percent reduction in property damage claims and a 92 percent reduction in bodily injury claims.”

“We have the data,” says Adam Thierer, author of Permissionless Innovation. “94 percent of all accidents are attributable to human error….We can address one of the leading killers of Americans.”

Unfortunately, some politicians say you shouldn’t be allowed to try robotaxis.

New York state Sen. Luis Sepulveda (D–Bronx) wants a law that says motor vehicles for hire “shall not be…operated by an automated driving system without a human driver…seated behind the steering wheel and engaged in the task of driving.”

He says the state must protect immigrant taxi and Uber drivers who live in his district.

“I cannot support something that is going to almost overnight lead to loss of jobs of over 100,000 people,” he says.

“Even if he isn’t needed?” I ask. “Even if he’s worse than the machine?”

“I don’t think that having an individual in a vehicle would be worse than a machine,” says Sepulveda.

“That’s just wrong,” says Thierer. “Humans get drunk, drowsy, distracted. Say what you want about robots, they don’t get drunk.”

Sepulveda responds: “Waymo is going to make billions of dollars—let them pay for the disruption to the labor force.”

“Sounds like a mafia pitch,” I push back. “‘Want to come here, Waymo? You have to pay.’”

“If the pitch sounds like a mafia pitch, so be it,” Sepulveda replies.

I thought I might change his thinking by making a creepy comparison, telling him his ban would kill more people than infamous serial killers have. Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and John Wayne Gacy combined killed about 80 people. Human-driven cars kill more people every day.

“The data on Waymo is not 100 percent safety,” he replies. “A Waymo vehicle struck a child in California.”

Like most critics, he cites isolated incidents. Even that child wasn’t injured.

Millions of miles of data show that robocars are much safer.

And they keep getting safer. We humans learn from our own experiences, but self-driving cars learn from millions of miles of experience. They get better while we sleep.

Yes, some drivers will lose jobs. But technology constantly does that. Despite all the jobs destroyed by computers, U.S. unemployment has stayed relatively low.

Typists, switchboard operators, and elevator operators lost jobs. But most found other jobs, often better jobs.

“Some people want cars with no drivers,” I tell Sepulveda. “Women feel unsafe. Some drivers don’t smell good. Some are reckless.”

“Many women feel safer with a driver,” he replies.

“Shouldn’t people have the choice?” I ask.

“Absolutely.”

“But you want to take away the choice!”

“No,” says Sepulveda. “I’m saying, [protect] the drivers that exist now.”

I say, with 100 Americans dying in cars every day, politicians who slow the arrival of self-driving cars have blood on their hands.

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