The War on Self-Driving Cars Will Kill People

What a weird article. As an avid cyclist, I would love self-driving cars to eventually take over the roads as I do believe they will eventually be safer than the humans with phones in their hands.

But I also think Tesla has singlehandedly wrecked the public perception of self-driving cars with their recklessness and disregard for human life, and faking statistics to try to legalize their self-driving mode: https://www.reuters.com/world/tesla-presented-misleading-ful...

Separately, I'd be pissed if my lawmaker tried to make this argument:

> New York state Sen. Luis Sepulveda (D–Bronx) wants a law that says motor vehicles for hire "shall not be…operated by an automated driving system without a human driver…seated behind the steering wheel and engaged in the task of driving."

> He says the state must protect immigrant taxi and Uber drivers who live in his district.

Re: The War on Self-Driving Cars Will Kill People

#5

Post by tim-tday » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 3:21 AM UTC

Deploying self driving cars too early will kill people. The uber self driving cars were operating in SF without a permit (they told the dmv the rules didn’t apply to them). The cars didn’t know how to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks. I stepped into the garage to ask them to file a bug report. I got laughed out of the place. Lucky CA DMV responded to their assertion that the self driving permit didn’t apply to them by saying “we appear to have issued these vehicle registrations in error. They are hereby revoked”

Tech companies love to push tech out before it’s finished. There’s a whole philosophy of doing that. Unfortunately for safety related things that means people will die.

Full Self Driving has killed half a dozen people that I know of. It was pushed out early and people died because of it.