Automobile crashes killed more individuals in Los Angeles than homicides in 2023, with town surpassing greater than 300 traffic-related deaths final 12 months. The offender behind these file site visitors fatalities is all too acquainted: human drivers. However simply as autonomous autos start to supply a substitute for the lethal established order created by drivers, opponents of the brand new expertise are campaigning to smear AVs’ security file.
In Los Angeles, the Teamsters have protested, released statements, and held press conferences all centered on sharing the message that AVs are “reckless” and “harmful.” Lacking from the scaremongering is any information to again up the Teamsters’ security claims.
Over the previous 12 months, a wave of analysis has come out permitting for the comparative analyses of AVs and human drivers. Research examining insurance claims has discovered that AVs minimize down considerably on each bodily damage and property injury in contrast with human drivers. In a side-by-side study of robotaxis and human drivers, one other report discovered that AVs in San Francisco decreased crashes with an damage or injury by an estimated 71 % over human rideshare operators. And evaluating AVs in San Francisco, Phoenix, and LA to human drivers in these cities, the identical research discovered that AVs decreased crashes by 85 %.
These are life-saving numbers. In actual fact, if autonomous autos represented simply 13 % of the vehicles on the street in California, our researchfinds that AVs would have saved an estimated 1,300 lives over the past three years and prevented as much as 5,000 severe accidents.
How AVs outperform human drivers on security isn’t an enormous secret. AVs don’t drink and drive, whereas LA sees more than 100 drunk driving fatalities in a single 12 months. AVs don’t drive distracted, whereas distracted drivers in California trigger more than 100 fatalities yearly. And AVs don’t velocity, whereas speeders killed over 1,500 people statewide in 2021.
Importantly, AVs additionally turn out to be higher yearly. With extra information and extra driving time, AVs are enhancing how they hold passengers, pedestrians, and everybody on the street protected. Visitors fatalities from human drivers, however, have remained stubbornly excessive, year after year.
Regardless of the info, the Teamsters have launched a so-called “safety” marketing campaign towards AV applied sciences. To cease AVs of their tracks, the union has sponsored laws (SB 915) that may permit native municipalities to ban AVs, successfully quashing AV deployment statewide by making a patchwork of legal guidelines that limit their journey between cities and cities.
Whereas a mass of analysis on AV and human driver security contradicts the Teamsters’ security rhetoric, the union has one other argument they’ve deployed towards AVs – a concern that AVs will result in misplaced jobs.
These claims deserve extra scrutiny.
That’s why my group, Chamber of Progress, simply published new research discovering that AVs are poised to create 114,000 jobs over the following 15 years in manufacturing, distribution, upkeep, upgrades, and repairs. Higher but, an estimated 82 % of AV employees will make greater than the median wage. Examine that to rideshare drivers, who average beneath the national median salary.
Researchers have discovered that autonomous vehicles would improve the variety of U.S. jobs by as many as 35,000. One other study by the Nationwide Incapacity Institute reveals that if dependable, inexpensive AVs had been extensively out there, round 4.4 million direct jobs would open up for Individuals with a incapacity.
And the advantages that AVs carry to the disabled group transcend job entry. The National Federation of the Blindargues that the autonomy AVs supply blind and low-vision individuals can be life-changing. AVs would additionally ease the transportation burdens minority communities face by making it simpler, safer, and cheaper to get round.
Unions are an necessary a part of our society which have created crucial employees’ rights for everybody. They’ll and will advocate for job protections. However the Teamsters’ claims concerning the security of AVs are false, and the fact behind AVs and jobs is extra advanced than the Teamsters admit.
We must always search for methods to enhance alternatives for employees. However these alternatives shouldn’t come on the expense of public security and fairness options, or the brand new job alternatives AVs will carry. Whereas AVs may minimize into the Teamsters’ maintain on California’s transportation sector, that’s a poor motive for stalling a life-saving innovation that may forestall site visitors fatalities.
As roadway deaths outpace gun violence in LA, we have to be sincere concerning the actuality of the site visitors security disaster we face: the established order created by lethal human drivers is damaged. For a decade, California cities have didn’t make headway attaining their Imaginative and prescient Zero targets to scale back site visitors fatalities. It’s time for policymakers to aspect with the protection information and permit for the rollout of protected AVs in California.
Adam Kovacevich is the founder and CEO of Chamber of Progress. Adam has labored on the intersection of tech and politics for 20 years, main public coverage at Google and Lime.
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