Boston Globe – ‘Drivers are people’: Boston City councilors want to delay the arrival of self-driving cars
See original article by Aaron Pressman at the Boston Globe
A majority of Boston City councilors on Thursday raised concerns about allowing self-driving cars on local roads, worried that autonomous vehicles might add to congestion, create unsafe conditions, and displace ride-sharing drivers.
Dozens of ride-sharing drivers opposed to such vehicles packed the hearing room and held a rally in City Hall Plaza denouncing the technology.
After years of hype, there is finally some movement around regulating the tech locally.State legislators are considering a bill to establish rules for autonomous vehicles, and several city councilors said they were working on a potential ordinance to slow the arrival of such vehicles.
The ordinancewould require further study before allowing autonomous vehicles on city streets and establish an advisory commission including representatives of small business, ride-sharing drivers, and others, councilors said.
The proposals follow self-driving car company Waymo’s mapping of roads in Boston and surrounding communitiesin May and June, though all of its vehicles were driven by humans during the project.
At a hearing in City Hall, city councilor Ed Flynn noted that Boston’s twisting, narrow streets and winter weather present obstacles that autonomous cars have yet to conquer. “We need to consider … whether the addition of self-driving cars into this chaotic dynamic is appropriate for Boston,” he said. “I don’t think it is.”
The discussion also included comments about AI’s impact on workers. “My main concern with this approach in Boston, and honestly across the country, is the loss of jobs and livelihoods of so many people,” councilor Enrique Pepen added.
Autonomous car companies including Waymo are already offering driverless rides in parts of San Francisco, Phoenix, and other cities. The companies say their statistics show driverlessvehicles get into fewer accidents than human-driven vehicles. But self-driving cars have alsocaused problems, including delaying emergency vehicles and blocking traffic after becoming confused by traffic cones.
Representing Mayor MichelleWu’s position, chief of streets Jascha Franklin-Hodge said the city is studying the experiences of other cities and discussing possible regulations with state legislators.
Autonomous vehicles have “the potential for really substantial disruption in the city of Boston,” Franklin-Hodge said. “We believe that it is essential that we plan, that we regulate, that we test, and learn here in the city, rather than simply opening the doors.”
Union officials representing drivers for Uber and Lyft testified that autonomous vehicles should be prohibited because they would take away jobs. About 70,000 people have joined a new App Drivers Union since last year when voters approved a ballot measure permitting unionization of the workers that the companies had considered independent contractors.
“We’ve seen what happens when tech companies are allowed to move fast without accountability,” Mike Vartabedian, representing the App Driver Union, said at the hearing. “We urge the committee to hit the brakes on driverless cars until we fully understand what’s at stake.”
“I’m here to ask you to protect our local jobs of drivers like me,” driver and union member Prisell Polanco told the councilors.
Waymo officials at the hearing said their two-month mapping effort was completed and that the company has no “official plans” to offer service in Boston.
Matt Walsh, regional head of state and local public policy at Waymo, said the company is working with state legislators on possible regulations and touted advancements in the company’s software.
“I don’t believe that the conditions here in Boston are so unique that this technology would not be able to operate as effectively as it is every single day” in other cities, he said.
Waymo is still testing its driverless vehicles in cities with harsh winter conditions, David Margines, the company’s director of product management said. “We have not yet validated the Waymo driver for fully driverless operations in things like snow and standing snow on the ground,” he said.
After Margines and Walsh repeatedly referred to the software that runs their autonomous cars as the “Waymo driver,” the word choice drew the ire of several city councilors.
“There’s something very unsettling about your company referring to drivers [of] driverless cars,” councilor Sharon Durkan said. “Drivers are people. … I think that is so creepy, and I think that that is so unsettling.”
See original article by Aaron Pressman at the Boston Globe
