Adams’ pick for taxi chief wants to put self-driving cars on city streets
Mayor Adams’ nominee to run the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission wants to bring self-driving cars to New York.
David Do, the former head of Washington’s Department of For-Hire Vehicles, told City Council members during his confirmation hearing Tuesday that he helped set up regulations to test autonomous vehicles in the nation’s capital — and suggested doing the same in the Big Apple.
“We need to think about automated vehicles and how we can fit them in our industry in a way that’s equitable, safe and accessible,” Do told Council members.
City officials have done little to regulate self-driving cars, and have allowed a limited number of companies to test the unproven technology on the streets on an ad hoc basis.
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser in 2018 formed a working group to look into self-driving cars. The group in 2020 published a study on what impact the technology would have on the city’s streets. Earlier this year, Do and other regulators proposed rules for testing the robot vehicles.
The proposed rules laid out permitting requirements, listed streets where autonomous vehicles could be tested and mandated two operators be inside the cars while they’re driven by computers.
Do said he wants to “ensure that no job is lost” as autonomous vehicle technology advances.
Bhairavi Desai, founder of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, said self-driving cars are bad news for the city and its taxi drivers. She pointed to a 2018 test of autonomous vehicle technology by Uber in Arizona that killed a pedestrian as evidence driverless cars are unsafe.
“The regulatory framework for autonomous vehicles is that they should be banned,” said Desai. “We’ve got to move away from this illusion that technology is progress. Letting taxi drivers earn a dignified living, that’s progress.”
Uber in a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission last September wrote its “financial performance and prospects would be adversely impacted” if it is not the first company to roll out self-driving cars. The company — which has a deficit of more than $24 billion — may need the technology in order to become profitable.
“[The] use of autonomous vehicles could substantially reduce the cost of providing ridesharing, delivery, or logistics services, which could allow competitors to offer such services at a substantially lower price as compared to the price available to consumers on our platform,” Uber’s filing states.