The Feb. 2 editorial, “Let the robot drive,” enthusiastically endorsed the use of autonomous vehicles to reduce the scourge of motor vehicle crashes in the United States. This view overwhelmingly relied on data released by Waymo, an autonomous vehicle company that has a huge financial stake in this debate. The company claims that data from just 33 million miles shows the superiority of the technology over human drivers. However, the Transportation Department reported that more than 3 trillion miles were driven in 2023 alone. It is preposterous to compare outcomes related to such a huge data disparity. Even chipmaker Nvidia’s automotive chief predicts that autonomous vehicles won’t be ready for wide-scale use in this decade.
Waymo and all other autonomous vehicle companies should be transparent about the current technological limitations. For instance, these vehicles have been found by experts to have unacceptable deficiencies when performing in reduced visibility conditions involving snow, sun glare, fog and even dust.
Autonomous vehicles are being bandied about like a one-size-fits-all solution to the roughly 6 million annual collisions, even as federal safety rules are on the chopping block in Washington. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation just sued the Transportation Department over its rule last year requiring lifesaving automatic emergency braking on all new cars by 2029. The group claims it’s not possible to meet the required stopping distances at highway speeds. Won’t autonomous vehicles also have to brake at these high speeds?
I agree that the 40,000 people killed and 2 million injured in crashes every year represent a national crisis, but we should focus on what is proven to reduce crash risk, such as the exciting automatic emergency braking technology. We can welcome autonomous vehicles into the mix when the technology is ready. A weak “policy framework” proposed by an industry group is no substitute for strong government safety requirements. The Editorial Board also should have added a disclaimer notifying readers of Post owner Jeff Bezos’s financial stake in the autonomous vehicle company Zoox, which is owned by Amazon.
I don’t believe trillion-dollar tech companies will put our safety over their profits.
Joan Claybrook, Washington
The writer is a former administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration at the Transportation Department.
