Robot taxis are crashing, but experts say the answer isn't just to ban self-driving cars.
In response to a string of hazardous incidents, including a collision involving a cyclist, Waymo, the self-driving car division of Google, is initiating a recall of its vehicles. While this initially looks like a reason to get rid of self-driving cars, it illustrates why there shouldn't be any cars in cities. Observers say that whether humans or computers are driving those cars, they're all dirty and noisy, take up a considerable amount of space even when parked, and, as we've seen, threaten city dwellers' lives.
"I would definitely say that tech companies want self-driving cars far more than the general public does. Public concern about such vehicles hasn't exactly been hidden - many people are incredibly vocal about their worries about self-driving vehicles. The fact that there have been so many crashes and errors like the Waymo ones is only further proof that this kind of technology is not ready to be rolled out for regular use yet," said Ben Michael, an attorney at Michael and Associates.
No Waymo
Pop quiz: If you see a tow truck dragging a pickup improperly so that it is angled across two lanes and facing you, do you a) curse the driver and hang back, b) take evasive action to pass this maniac safely, or c) drive into the tow truck? If you're a Waymo self-driving taxi, the answer is c. Last year, according to Waymo, not one, but two of its robot taxis drove into the same pickup truck in Phoenix, Arizona, within minutes of each other. It appears the cars got confused by the backward-facing pickup and incorrectly predicted their movements.
In response, Waymo has recalled the cars, or rather, it has issued a "voluntary recall report" for the cars' software.
There's more. Last week, a Waymo hit a San Francisco cyclist, causing "non-life-threatening injuries."
And last year, a self-driving car operated by Cruise dragged a hit-and-run victim down the street. I could go on. In fact, I will. As everyone knows, Tesla's autopilot feature is not meant to drive your car for you, except when, you know, it drives your vehicle for you. Then, in 2021, a Tesla may have been driving itself when it hit and killed a man changing a tire by the side of the road.
"Driverless cars have caused major concerns in San Francisco by disrupting first responders on multiple occasions, including driving into scenes cordoned off by caution tape and striking a firetruck responding to an emergency," wrote Washington Post reporter Maham Javaid.
Human drivers aren't much better now, but that's looking at the problem from the wrong direction. The fact is, no matter who is or isn't driving a car in the city, people around them are going to get killed. And not just by getting mowed down in the street.
Cities Are For Living
Cars are so woven into the fabric of our cities that it's hard to conceive of urban life without them, so let's consider something else that used to be utterly commonplace and normalized: smoking. Like cars, smoking was allowed pretty much everywhere, and like drivers, smokers felt an entitlement to inflict their habit on everybody else. My partner, for example, remembers their teachers smoking in class when they were kids in school.
Now, the idea of a smoky underground bar seems unbelievable. You'd never allow a person to smoke in the office. TV interviewers don't smoke while they talk. And these country-wide smoking bans are relatively recent, only one or two decades old in most cases.
Now, let's return to cars. Our future selves will look back and wonder how we didn't see the problems. Cars pollute the air, of course, and electric cars may be even worse thanks to the extra brake dust and rubber tire particles emitted because of their extra weight. They're noisy-you're never out of earshot of a road in a city. They cut through neighborhoods, and they use an absurd amount of space.
Across the US, for example, parking alone accounts for 5% of all urban land. In Los Angeles, parking accounts for more land than housing. That land could become bike lanes, pavement seating for restaurants, rest areas and parks, tram tracks or bus lanes, or used for building to alleviate the housing crises that drive up city rental prices.
We can't ditch cars overnight, but it could happen faster than we think, like the smoking bans. Public transit needs to be upgraded, of course, so we can still get around, but city zoning can also help. Paris is in the middle of a push to eliminate cars and create a 15-minute city where every neighborhood has all the basic needs within a short walk instead of putting businesses and homes at either end of a commute.
And what about all those arguments that businesses will collapse without cars to bring customers? We heard the same thing from bars and restaurants. People will only visit if they can smoke, they said. And look what happened there. Instead of considering reasons to keep doing the same old harmful things, we should start to imagine how amazing our cities will be when they are designed for the people, not their cars.
Charlie Sorrel has been writing about technology, and its effects on society and the planet, for almost two decades. Previously, you could find him at Wired's Gadget Lab, Fast Company's CoExist, Cult of Mac, and Mac Stories. He also writes for his own site, StraightNoFilter.com, Lifewire Tech News, and iFixit.
