Along for the Ride #208
Cruise control, chaos, and the dignity of human life
Heya friends, happy Friday!
I only missed one week of newsletters, but let me tell you, it was a week. I’ll deep dive on Cruise’s most recent (and most disheartening) disorder below, but first I’m also excited to share that I’ll be in London in about two weeks (!!). I am planning a bit of a mobility nerd happy hour one evening, so if you’re around London, would love to have you there. There is a 90% if you attend you’ll have the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet my mom! More to come on that soon.
In the meantime, you can find me this weekend at the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition’s Winterfest!! Grab a ticket and come celebrate how wonderful bikes are.
OK, onto the news!
Cruise’s San Francisco meltdown and National backlash
Last week it was revealed that Cruise’s collision (where they ran over a passenger—see AFTR #205) was much, much worse than originally reported—and the company intentionally deceived public agencies when they reported the incident.
We learned that after the Cruise vehicle ran over the pedestrian, the car then attempted to pull over, dragging the pedestrian 20 feet with it. When Cruise first shared information with their public counterparts, there was no mention of the dragging. They clipped video footage that was shared to show only the initial runover. However, the video was leaked and karma came spinning back around to hit Cruise. The DMV revoked their permit to operate without a safety driver, and Cruise has voluntarily pulled all cars from operations (including those outside California).
Cruise published a statement stating the company is taking a “hard look inwards” and “proactively” pausing their services nationwide. Before awarding Cruise a gold star for doing the bare minimum, I assume every single city partner they work with was likely (1) alarmed, (2) on the verge of asking them to pause operations (if not already having active conversations around a pause), and (3) questioning the faith they’d placed in Cruise to begin with.
This moment is an inflection point for the wider industry. Where people didn’t trust the technology behind the cars, at the very least there was some trust that the people behind the technology were at least trying to make the tech (and transportation at large) safer. What we have now is a complete fracture of trust in the people behind the product.
Public agencies have been lied to and deceived, and it feels only plausible that it can and will happen again. This moment is a defining one for Cruise; it is the moment it became abundantly clear the company will prioritize its profits and reputation over human life. They can claim to care about creating safer streets to keep people alive, but their actions last month demonstrate a deeply-seeded disregard for human life. The woman has not been named in any reports and remains in hospital under critical condition.
And related articles:
How Cruise’s crash highlights fragmented regulations for AVs [WaPo]
How San Francisco is trying to stop robotaxi companies from pivoting into deliveries [SF Standard]
Where AVs are crashing in SF [SF Examiner]
So cool to see my friend, fellow newsletter writer and AFTR reader John publish a piece about why people who oppose biking (and its respective infrastructure) will lose the cultural war they are starting. In his own words, from his own newsletter:
”… I am fascinated by those tough conversations [about cars]. Because I think they’re going to signify some of the most significant roadblocks (pun!) to changing policies and realities in the years ahead, as cities look to reduce emissions and traffic violence—all of which will require less cars on the street.”
Super commuting is on the rise
What is super commuting you ask? It’s an average commute of 3-hours per day (😵💫), and can range from commuting on a highway from a further afield suburb to more glamourous commutes that entail planes and trains and automobiles. This article starts with describing the glamourous, C-suite super commuters and gets into the less glamourous (and more common..) super commuter: those who are forced to live far from their jobs due to city centres becoming increasingly unaffordable.
The more you know:
Norway rethinks EVs as a climate solution [Vox]
As full autonomy stalls, partial autonomy thrives
This article from The Atlantic talks about how the less robust and less controversial “assisted driving tech” is becoming more and more normalized with consumers. It is sadly behind a paywall (boo).
The more you know:
Tesla wins another court case claiming collision using their assisted driving tech was caused via human error [The Verge]
Uber starts offering rides in Pheonix via Waymo [CNBC]
Chinese AV start-up Pony.AI raises $100M via NEOM in Saudi Arabia [Tech Crunch]
Japan suspends its first AV trial after the vehicle hit a parked bicycle [Gagadget]
We need less driverless cars [sic], and more carless drivers
“It’s not that driverless cars aren’t without benefits. The idea sounds good in theory, taking human error out of the equation and replacing it with a presumably infallible computer. The problem is that even ignoring the major safety risks of testing out this unproven technology on public streets around unconsenting individuals, you’re still left with an increase in the numbers of cars on the road leading to the same problems cars cause today.”
Last week in LA I took more car rides than I can remember, and after sharing a photo of me in the passenger seat of my friend’s car gleefully holding onto a takeout hot chocolate my friend Rosie let me know it was “like the antithesis of Sarah”. Needless to say, I am happy to be back in SF with the warm embrace of the N-Judah.
I was talking with friends this week about a cute lil tomato plant that is growing outside of my building (pictured above). I have no idea who planted it, or why, but I just love that it exists. I was reminded of research from Vancouver about urban farms and the impact of local air pollution on soil contamination (and how air pollution can render produce essentially un-edible 😔). I couldn’t find that exact research, but I did find Vancouver’s guide for reducing health risks for urban farming. Maybe you too can nerd out about this.
That’s all from me. Have a beautiful weekend friends.
Sarah
