Biden’s Skeptics Will Halt the Next Transportation Revolution

SACRAMENTO — Reflecting on the early years of automotive history, Alexander Winton — who arguably sold the first-ever automobile in 1897 — recalled the naysayers who couldn’t envision the idea that horseless carriages would ever gain widespread acceptance. They viewed the newfangled conveyance as an absurdity given the lack of suitable road infrastructure and the difficulty in finding gasoline.

In a 1930 Saturday Evening Post article, Winton quoted a typical view expressed by a late-19th-century reporter, who wrote the notion that cars or buses “will be able to compete with railroad trains for long-distance traffic is visionary to the point of lunacy.… But, if it ever emerges from the nebulous state, it will be in a world where natural laws are all turned topsy-turvy, and time and space are no more.” So much for trusting predictions from journalists.

Winton springs to mind as regulators in California and elsewhere consider the rules of the road for the emerging autonomous vehicle (self-driving cars) technology. This technology is admittedly hard to fathom even though some of these AVs already are on the road — and even though most cars now come with impressive self-driving features (adaptive cruise control, blind-spot monitoring, lane assist). I just can’t wrap my ahead around jumping into a driverless taxi.

But my lack of imagination or yours shouldn’t constrain the development of this revolutionary technology. As a late adopter of tech — my current truck still sports manual windows and I still subscribe to Napster — I’ll come around eventually. Unfortunately, this technology’s development is dependent on lawmakers and regulators. The former are most interested in placating turf-protecting interest groups, and the latter are notoriously averse to risk.

Given the last point, I was pleasantly surprised to see the California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates AVs, give Waymo the go-ahead to expand its service in Los Angeles and the Bay Area, even allowing robo-taxis to drive on freeways at 65 mph. The ruling “follows sharp opposition from local officials … who tried halting the expansion, arguing that they should have more power over how, and if, the technology is deployed on their streets,” per a Washington Post report in March.

As with any new idea these days — and especially in California — the main constraints to success have less to do with technological glitches and more to do with regulatory hurdles. Given the number of government bureaus — local, regional, and state — it’s amazing that any company even plows ahead with innovative and disruptive business models. We’re at a place where they must deal with a panoply of rules, as different agencies impose various hurdles.

Fortunately, Waymo — the AV division of Alphabet Inc. (Google) — is pursuing a careful rollout, thus minimizing some of the safety concerns and criticisms from the anti-progress crowd. San Mateo County officials had sent a letter to the CPUC, complaining that the now-approved expansion “requires much closer scrutiny and stakeholder outreach.” One supervisor raised safety concerns, but that issue is actually fairly easy to rebut.

Obviously, public safety on public roads is a legitimate government, but “safety” shouldn’t be a trump card used to stifle new businesses. That San Mateo County supervisor pointed to an accident in San Francisco between a robo-taxi and a bicyclist as a warning. Per Reuters, the accident caused only minor injuries, and the details of the incident are under investigation. For perspective, last year San Francisco experienced 376 bicycle-related collisions involving human riders and drivers.

In reality, AVs offer the potential for a vast reduction in collisions and road fatalities. As others have noted, robots don’t drive under the influence, aren’t distracted by cellphones, don’t speed, and are programmed to follow all of the traffic rules. Researchers at Rand “found that introducing autonomous vehicles when they are just better than human drivers—as opposed to nearly perfect—could save hundreds of thousands of lives over 30 years.”

The 2017 study concluded that waiting for AV perfection costs thousands of lives. Our country’s approach to regulation is literally the definition of letting the perfect become the enemy of the good. We all know that governmental agencies — think the Food and Drug Administration’s slow drug-approval process — are more concerned about avoiding a high-profile mistake than they are about the loss of life that occurs from delaying life-saving drugs or technologies.

It’s no surprise that the Biden administration is taking a punitive approach to AV innovation. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating two AV companies based on “reports of crashes or potential traffic violations involving the companies’ autonomous vehicles,” the Washington Post reported this week. It noted that the federal government doesn’t have the authority to set AV standards, so it “has instead turned to its investigative authorities to assess the safety risks posed by the new class of vehicle.”

Think about the inanity of that action. Nearly 41,000 Americans died in motor-vehicle collisions in 2022. The United States sees more than 6 million passenger-car accidents each year. It’s impossible to calculate the number of “potential traffic violations” by human drivers. And yet NHTSA is focusing its attention on a handful of mishaps involving self-driving cars.

Ironically, the administration is pushing something called Vision Zero — an unrealistic effort to reduce roadway deaths to zero mainly through changes to the existing transportation system. Meanwhile, it is resisting a technology that could significantly lower traffic fatalities. 

The California Legislature is — no surprise here — inserting itself into AV regulation. Senate Bill 915, set for a hearing this week, would give localities the explicit power to enact “an ordinance in regard to autonomous vehicle services within that jurisdiction.” Given the resistance to AVs by some local officials, such as those in above-mentioned San Mateo County, this will only create more of a regulatory patchwork that impedes the growth of a life-saving technology.

It’s tempting to compare these local officials to Luddites, the early-19th-century textile workers who sabotaged mechanized looms to protect their jobs. But Waymo has recently had to deal with opponents who actually use the Luddites’ destructive techniques, including people who have vandalized self-driving cars in San Francisco. It’s crazy.

In addition to the safety benefits, AVs offer a great potential in mobility, especially for disabled people, the elderly, and others who don’t drive. They offer additional transportation options especially for people living in bigger cities. Frankly, we don’t know how far-reaching this technology might be, just as late-19th-century skeptics couldn’t envision a world with cars. But first we have to get the lawmakers and regulators out of the way.