Autonomous vehicles, or AVs, will be the most disruptive technology to hit society worldwide since the advent of the motorcar.
This pronouncement by the team of journalist Karen Kelly and former New York City traffic commissioner Sam Schwartz is the sort of boilerplate futurism you’ll find written about any new technology. Likewise, the very next statement could almost be chalked up to typical hyperbole: “Some futurists and policy experts even talk about driving being banned on some or all roads.”
What sets No One At The Wheel: Driverless Cars and the Road of the Future apart from that sort of replacement-level schlock isn’t where it looks forward, then, but for how it looks backward to show how a similar process already happened.
A century ago, the original grand theft auto was letting the car industry steal the roads from pedestrians and non-motorized traffic. Soon, driverless industries will be in a position to take the roads from the public entirely.
But only if we let them.
Many people like to make comparisons between horséd carriages and how they irrevocably gave way to the horseless ones, but this is the first book I’ve come across to make that comparison direct and examined in detail.
In a different book review, I argued that for all of the breathless adoration about the future of autonomous vehicles, we could achieve huge reductions in traffic fatalities by utilizing proven technology, which coincidentally has proven cost-benefit analyses already performed for it.
Although not the main target of that review, apartheid-era white South African and “rough-upbringing” survivor Elon Musk is as close to the platonic ideal of that position as you could ask for. Arguing that AVs would save many more lives than they’d kill, Musk has called journalists writing critical coverage of AV technology akin to murderers.
“[When] you write an article that effectively dissuades people from using an autonomous car, you’re killing people,” Musk said in 2016.
Yet, Schwartz and Kelly point out that Musk is not nearly interested in pushing mass (public) transit options or even installing more roundabouts.
Roundabout driving | WSDOT
“Roundabouts, or traffic circles, reduce fatal crashes by 70 to 90 percent compared to standard intersections, and injuries in crashes by 75 percent, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.”
But Musk doesn’t own a roundabout-installation company, so this method of saving lives is not as morally compelling to him.
Perhaps just as importantly, we actually have some idea just how much it costs to install a roundabout, what it can accomplish, and can’t.
The civil engineer Justin Roczniak, known on YouTube as donoteat01, applied this criticism to Musk’s proposed underground Loop under the common engineering distinction between AM/FM, that is “actual machines” and, well, “fanciful magic”.
No One At The Wheel gives examples of other ways that so many promises of Autonomous Vehicles are already achievable if we changed our approach to road travel to something akin to air travel.
And for air travel, no failure leading to a loss of life is acceptable. The reason we don’t lose 35,000 people per year flying is that we know humans are fallible creatures and the system is designed around folks messing up without the result being deadly.
Roundabouts—boringly—don’t involve engaging in elaborate philosophical constructions about which people tied to railroad tracks you’d have to kill in the case of a runaway trolley.
But they do make it much more difficult for any “trolleys” to go out of control, which seems the better investment, all-in-all.
So Schwartz and Kelly lay out a convincing case for why technology will continue to develop to put AVs on the road but that this is a smokescreen for how the real benefits will accrue and who for.
Algorithms can’t unionize, and new, privatized projects are by definition more profitable than maintaining or improving existing public systems.
Whether or not AV tractor-trailers actually make society safer is a moot question. They’ll get rid of a major fixed cost and point of friction for business owners, and with enough money spent on the right campaign contributions and good lobbying, anyone killed by the vehicle’s bad programming will be the ones blamed for putting themselves in danger.
Or, it won’t be the fault of the company for releasing a vehicle that can be easily hacked and driven into a crowd; it will be the fault of the hacker, solely.
Again, the book really shines because it looks at the past and how all of this already happened as automobiles became legally privileged over pedestrians and other modes of transportation in city streets.
It was not natural, it was not easy, but as the virally shareable illustration by Swedish artist Karl Jilg evokes, we surrendered a lot of valuable real estate to dangerous, pollution-belching machines that aren’t there most of the time, and don’t actually get people places any quicker once rush hour hits.
But it was what the automobile companies and associated industries wanted, and they pushed for it methodically with lots of resources behind them.
In the name of progress, carriages no longer had to avoid people: people had to avoid the carriages.
I don’t think Schwartz and Kelly are being inherently alarmist or imagining a wild dystopia; the superhero film Logan did a fine job showing the plausible terror of sharing the road with AV tractor-trailers when it’s your fault for not having a new enough vehicle to drive you better.
They also logically extend the present into a future where the inevitable UberLyft merger and its AV fleet are permanent zombie traffic because it’s cheaper to leave them driving aimlessly, available to pick up folks, than it is to ever pay for parking. In all likelihood, the cars won’t even solve Sudokus as they do it.
Technology is never just technology, and what seems inevitable with benefit of retrospect took tremendous cost and effort in the moment to be made just so and not different.
And yet, the authors provide you some cause for optimism. The United States is not a democracy, we know: we were set up to be a republic, like the Romans.
Our politics are not incapable of producing positive change, in any case, and we could really see huge improvements in the quality of life for everyday people if those are the goals we choose to actually and consistently advance.
Schwartz and Kelly argue that if the Autonomous Vehicles are publicly owned, integrated into mass transit, and utilized only in situations where they make sense like long distance trips and last-mile for people with disabilities, then it could be a boon to people’s time and comfort.
But we have to be vigilant to see that solutions proposed based on new technology actually can do what they promise and without un-mentioned, externalized costs.
If you were an early 20th-century city dweller, getting rid of the danger fatal kicks in the head by a horse and the smelly pollution of manure on the streets no doubt would have made horseless carriages appear an attractive, safe improvement.
Which is the difference between Actual Machines and, well, Magic.
Sunday, June 16th, 2019
Last week (June 10th-14th) in Congress: How Cascadia’s U.S. lawmakers voted
Happy Father’s Day! Here’s how Cascadia’s Members of Congress voted on major issues during the legislative week ending Friday, June 14th, 2019.
In the United States House of Representatives
The House chamber (U.S. Congress photo)
SEEKING COURTS’ HELP TO ENFORCE SUBPOENAS: Voting 229 for and 191 against, the House on June 11th adopted a resolution (H Res 430) authorizing its committees to ask federal courts to enforce committee subpoenas for documents and testimony from the Trump administration and its current and former officials. The action came in response to the administration’s refusals to comply with House Democrats’ requests for information and witness appearances in more than a dozen areas of inquiry, including Russian interference in U.S. elections, the addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 census, an administration-backed lawsuit challenging the Affordable Care Act and the separation of immigrant families on the southwest border.
Democrats say the subpoenas embody Congress’s constitutional duty to oversee the executive branch, while President Trump has cited executive privilege to block testimony of his current and former advisers and thwart legislative-branch scrutiny.
On a related track, the Judiciary Committee on May 8 approved civil contempt of Congress charges against Attorney General William Barr for not complying with its subpoena for the entire unredacted report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and underlying materials. The full House has delayed a vote on citing Barr pending the outcome of negotiations to obtain his voluntary cooperation.
A yes vote was to adopt the resolution, which took effect immediately.
Voting Nay (2): Republican Representatives Russ Fulcher and Mike Simpson
Voting Aye (4): Democratic Representatives Suzanne Bonamici, Earl Blumenauer, Peter DeFazio, Kurt Schrader
Voting Nay (1): Republican Representative Greg Walden
Voting Aye (7): Democratic Representatives Suzan DelBene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Pramila Jayapal, Kim Schrier, and Adam Smith
Voting Nay (2): Republican Representatives Dan Newhouse and Cathy McMorris Rodgers
Not Voting (1): Republican Representative Jaime Herrera-Beutler
Cascadia total: 11 aye votes, 5 nay votes, 1 not voting
PUBLIC EDUCATION ABOUT VACCINES: The House on June 12 voted, 341 for and 83 against, to increase spending by $5 million next fiscal year on a government program to educate the public about the effectiveness and safety of vaccines. The amendment was intended to combat misinformation being spread about vaccinations on social media. The vote occurred during debate on a bill (HR 2740) appropriating $99.4 billion for the Department of Health and Human Services in fiscal 2020 that remained in debate.
Adam Schiff, D-California, said: “The scientific and medical communities are in overwhelming consensus that vaccines are both effective and safe. There is no evidence to suggest that vaccines cause life-threatening or disabling diseases, and the dissemination of unfounded or debunked theories about the dangers of vaccination pose a great risk to the public health.”
No member spoke against the amendment.
A yes vote was to increase spending on vaccine education.
Voting Aye (1): Republican Representative Mike Simpson
Voting Nay (1): Republican Representative Russ Fulcher
Voting Aye (5): Democratic Representatives Suzanne Bonamici, Earl Blumenauer, Peter DeFazio, Kurt Schrader; Republican Representative Greg Walden
Voting Aye (9): Democratic Representatives Suzan DelBene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Pramila Jayapal, Kim Schrier, and Adam Smith; Republican Representatives Dan Newhouse and Cathy McMorris Rodgers
Not Voting (1): Republican Representative Jaime Herrera-Beutler
Cascadia total: 15 aye votes, 1 nay vote, 1 not voting
“CONSCIENCE RULE” FOR DENYING HEALTHCARE: Voting 192 for and 230 against, the House on June 12th refused to uphold a proposed Trump administration rule under which doctors and workers at hospitals, clinics and other health facilities could deny care to patients that conflicts with their religious or moral beliefs. Scheduled to take effect July 22th, the co-called “conscience rule” would override existing laws and policies that strike a balance between protecting the religious convictions of providers and delivering care in areas including reproductive services. On this vote, the House defeated a Republican-sponsored attempt to fund the rule as part of H.R. 2740 (above).
Phil Roe, R-Tennessee, said:
“We have a First Amendment right to practice our religion in America, and the government forcing someone to act in a way that violates those beliefs is in direct opposition to the very foundation of our Constitution.”
Lois Frankel, D-Florida, said:
“Under this Trump rule, a pharmacist could refuse to fill a prescription for birth control, a receptionist could refuse to schedule an abortion for a child rape victim, an ambulance driver could refuse to take a patient suffering from miscarriage to the hospital, all based upon their personal beliefs, not the patient’s welfare.”
A yes vote was to allow the rule to take effect next month.
Voting Aye (2): Republican Representatives Russ Fulcher and Mike Simpson
Voting Aye (1): Republican Representative Greg Walden
Voting Nay (4): Democratic Representatives Suzanne Bonamici, Earl Blumenauer, Peter DeFazio, Kurt Schrader
Voting Aye (2): Republican Representatives Dan Newhouse and Cathy McMorris Rodgers
Voting Nay (7): Democratic Representatives Suzan DelBene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Pramila Jayapal, Kim Schrier, and Adam Smith
Not Voting (1): Republican Representative Jaime Herrera-Beutler
Cascadia total: 5 aye votes, 11 nay votes, 1 not voting
CLAMPDOWN ON FETAL TISSUE RESEARCH: The House on June 13th voted, 225 for and 193 against, to block funding to implement a newly announced clampdown by the Trump administration on federal support of fetal tissue research. The vote occurred during debate on HR 2740 (above).
In part, the policy would prohibit National Institutes of Health scientists from conducting such research while subjecting academic scientists to an additional layer of ethics and bureaucratic review when they apply for NIH research grants.
Under a 1993 law, the NIH last year funded more than 150 projects by university scientists using fetal tissue donated after elective abortions to pursue treatments and cures for diseases including Alzheimer’s, ALS and Parkinson’s.
Rosa DeLauro, D-Connecticut, said the administration’s new policy puts “personal ideology ahead of public health.”
Andy Harris, R-Maryland, said additional ethics review is warranted for “one of the most controversial areas of research.”
A yes vote was to adopt the amendment in support of fetal tissue research.
Voting Nay (2): Republican Representatives Russ Fulcher and Mike Simpson
Voting Aye (4): Democratic Representatives Suzanne Bonamici, Earl Blumenauer, Peter DeFazio, Kurt Schrader
Voting Nay (1): Republican Representative Greg Walden
Voting Aye (7): Democratic Representatives Suzan DelBene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Pramila Jayapal, Kim Schrier, and Adam Smith
Voting Nay (2): Republican Representatives Dan Newhouse and Cathy McMorris Rodgers
Not Voting (1): Republican Representative Jaime Herrera-Beutler
Cascadia total: 11 aye votes, 5 nay votes, 1 not voting
REPORTING MIGRANT CHILDREN’S DEATHS: Voting 355 for and 68 against, the House on June 13 adopted an amendment to H.R. 2740 (above) requiring the Office of Refugee Resettlement in the Department of Health and Human Services to promptly inform Congress and the public when migrant children die while in the custody of U.S. immigration officials.
Sponsor Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, said that in September 2018, “a young 10-year-old girl died. This Congress and the American people were not told for seven or eight months about that young girl’s death.”
Andy Harris, R-Maryland, called the amendment “make-believe” because “this administration reports the deaths” of migrant children.
A yes vote was to adopt the amendment.
Voting Aye (1): Republican Representative Mike Simpson
Voting Nay (1): Republican Representative Russ Fulcher
Voting Aye (5): Democratic Representatives Suzanne Bonamici, Earl Blumenauer, Peter DeFazio, Kurt Schrader; Republican Representative Greg Walden
Voting Aye (9): Democratic Representatives Suzan DelBene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Pramila Jayapal, Kim Schrier, and Adam Smith; Republican Representatives Dan Newhouse and Cathy McMorris Rodgers
Not Voting (1): Republican Representative Jaime Herrera-Beutler
Cascadia total: 15 aye votes, 1 nay vote, 1 not voting
In the United States Senate
The Senate chamber (U.S. Congress photo)
$300 MILLION ARMS TO BAHRAIN: Voting 43 for and 56 against, the Senate on June 13 turned back a measure (S.J. Res 20) that sought to block the administration’s planned sale of $300 million in U.S. arms to Bahrain. The package consists mainly of surface-to-surface missiles and mobile rocket launching units along with American technical support. Bahrain, which belongs to a Saudi-led coalition waging war in Yemen, is host to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet. Backers called this a proxy vote against American involvement in Yemen’s civil war, while advocates of the arms sale it would benefit a key U.S. ally in the Middle East.
A yes vote was to advance a measure blocking the arms sale.
Voting Nay (2):
Republican Senators Jim Risch and Mike Crapo
Voting Aye (2):
Democratic Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley
Voting Aye (2):
Democratic Senators Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray
Cascadia total: 4 aye votes, 2 nay votes
Key votes ahead
The House will debate fiscal 2020 appropriations bills in the week of June 17th, while the Senate will vote on judicial nominations.
Editor’s Note: The information in NPI’s weekly How Cascadia’s U.S. lawmakers voted feature is provided by Voterama in Congress, a service of Thomas Voting Reports. All rights are reserved. Reproduction of this post is not permitted, not even with attribution. Use the permanent link to this post to share it… thanks!
© 2019 Thomas Voting Reports.
# Written by Voterama in Congress :: 9:30 AM
Categories: Legislative Advocacy
Tags: Last Week In Congress, U.S. House Roll Call Votes, U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes
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