A comparison of California Cruise robotaxi crash reports between the California DMV database and the NHTSA SGO database reveals significant discrepancies in reporting. 28 crashes reported to NHTSA do not appear in the California DMV database. This includes six unreported injury crashes. Of special note is the Cruise crash with a fire truck that caused serious injury to an occupant of the Cruise robotaxi does not appear as a California DMV crash report.  Comparison Results: 36 crashes were identified across both databases for the date-of-crash months of July 2023 through August 2023. The c ..read more

Cruise has announced a fleet-wide safety stand down. This involves suspending driverless operations in all cities, reverting to operation only with in-vehicle safety drivers. I'm glad to see this step taken. But it is crucial to realize that this is the first step in what it likely to prove a long journey. The question is, what should happen next? Loss of public trust is an issue as they say. And perhaps there was an imminent ban in another state forcing their hand to be proactive. But the core issues almost certainly run deeper than mismanaging disclosure of the details of a tragic mishap a ..read more

On October 24th I had the privilege of testifying at a San Francisco CTA board meeting regarding autonomous vehicle safety. The session started with SFCTA and SFMTA describing the challenges they have had with robotaxis, my talk, and then a series of Q&As about additional relevant topics. The robotaxi companies were invited to participate but declined. The news of the CA DMV suspension of Cruise permits broke as the hearing was starting, adding some additional context to the hearing. We have all heard the hype and marketing from the robotaxi companies. This event gave air time to the chall ..read more

Cruise has now had two pedestrian injuries in San Francisco, with the more severe one being complicated because it involved a pedestrian first hit by another vehicle.  NHTSA has launched an investigation based on those injuries and at least two other public video reports of close encounters. This makes available the relevant crash reports, so we have more direct information about what happened. The question asked in this piece is what can be done to avoid similar crashes in the future. On a numbers basis, two pedestrian injuries in a span of fewer than six weeks for a fleet of a couple ..read more

This 25-minute video talks about the concept of a Computer Driver to resolve the ambiguity and industry tapdancing we're seeing about who might be negligent for a crash when automation is driving the car. This creates a framework for both SAE Level 2 and Level 3 features that makes it explicit which of the computer driver or the human driver has the duty of care for safety at any given time. Topics: Why product liability is not enough to get the job done Tort law for engineers Assigning a duty of care to promote accountability Implications of defining a computer driver Duty of care for conven ..read more

If your city is getting robotaxis, here are five questions you should be asking yourself if you are in local government or an advocate for local stakeholders. Some of the answers to these questions might not be easy if you are operating under a state-imposed municipal preemption clause, which is quite common. But you should at least think through the situations up front instead of having to react later in crisis mode. (There might well be benefits to your city. But the robotaxi companies will be plastering them over as much media as they can, so there is no real need to repeat them here. Inste ..read more

The commercial deployment of robotaxis in San Francisco has made it apparent many issues remain to be resolved regarding the regulation and governance of autonomous vehicle technology at the state and local levels. This talk is directed at state and local stakeholders who are considering how to set policies and regulations governing this technology. Topics: Getting past Automated Vehicle (AV) safety rhetoric AV safety in a nutshell Safe as a human driver on average Avoiding risk transfer to vulnerable populations Avoiding negligent computer driving Conforming to industry consensus safety st ..read more

I recently had the privilege of testifying before the US House E&C committee on self-driving car safety. You can see the materials here: The nearly 3-hour hearing video My written testimony Basic hearing information (other written testimony in the AGENDA bar) Document repository (might have other documents later) A venue like this does not offer the best forum for nuance. In particular, one can make a precise statement for a reason and have that statement misunderstood (because there is limited time to explain), or misconstrued. The result can be talking past each other for reasons r ..read more

The current AV company messaging strategy is a classic case of a false dilemma fallacy. They frame the situation as a choice between continued human drivers killing people (without statistical context) vs. immature robotaxis who don't drink and drive (but make other mistakes). (Wikipedia: False dilemma) The recent Cruise ad in particular is a plainly ridiculous doubling-down on the industry's long discredited propaganda playbook. Cruise NY Times ad: https://twitter.com/kvogt/status/1679517290847694848 Analysis of AV industry playbook: https://www.eetimes.com/autonomous-vehicle-myths-the-dir ..read more

I'm delighted that months of collaboration with co-author and law professor William Widen have resulted in a trio of papers that together provide a framework for resolving the vast majority of automated vehicle legal questions. Product liability will still be a thing, but that should be reserved for its more usual role, and not be the sole means of recourse for everyday Computer Driver road mishaps that will displace the everyday Human Driver road mishaps. A tort law approach based on negligence is a far better fit and will require far less disruption to existing legal and regulatory systems w ..read more