US Driver Unions Protest Self-Driving Cars
In the course of an application to expand the service area for its robotaxis, Waymo is now encountering resistance from representatives of several US drivers’ unions, including the Teamsters. This latter union represents 1.4 million professional drivers who represent their interests across the US.
Waymo already operates commercial robotaxi services in San Francisco and Phoenix, and now wants to expand these areas. In Los Angeles, 50,000 people are on a waiting list to get access to Waymo Robotaxis.
Unions planned a demonstration in front of Los Angeles City Hall to demand stricter regulation of driverless cars. The unions are calling for backup drivers for driverless cars because they deny the technology is safe and fear for their own jobs. They also support calls for cities and regions to have a say in where driverless cars are to be used. So far, the respective state authorities such as the CA DMV and the CPUC have been responsible in California. Vice President Lindsay Dougherty commented:
It’s definitely an issue for working people in general but most definitely the Teamsters, who do represent drivers. The ultimate fear of our members is losing these jobs.
As she added, she is also not convinced that the Waymo Robotaxis are safe. She has never driven one and wouldn’t unless there was a safety driver in the car.
Any vehicle is a weapon, essentially. It is a piece of machinery that can harm not just other drivers but pedestrians. I just don’t trust the technology.
Even California Senator Dve Cortese, who supports the city co-determination bill, has never sat in a driverless car.
In 2022, 42,000 people died in road accidents in the USA, compared to around 2,500 in Germany. This is 17 times more than in Germany, where the population is only 4 times higher. Per capita, four times as many people die in road accidents than in Germany.
My Take
This approach to disruption is reminiscent of the Locomotive Act in the middle and end of the 19th century, in which legislators in the USA and Great Britain required a person to go in front of a locomotive or car and wave a red flag to warn others. In Great Britain, the law was in force from 1865 until 1896, when it was abolished. Until then, cars were not allowed to drive faster than walking speed.
Charles Rolls at the wheel of a Peugeot around 1896; a pedestrian with a warning flag walks in front.
Lift boys and elevator girls were also employed in the skyscrapers until the 1950s. In Manhattan alone, 15,000 people were employed in these jobs, although the technology had been available since the 1920s to allow elevator users to operate the elevators themselves. The elevators had running times, so if you missed the last elevator in the evening, you had to walk down dozens of floors. It was only a strike by elevator operators, which paralyzed working life in the skyscrapers in the 1950s, that led to them being dismissed and the elevator buttons being installed. Incidentally, I also wrote about this in more detail in my book Future Angst (in German).
FUTURE ANGST
Welche aktuellen Ängste prägen uns? Mit welchen Ängsten waren die Menschen in der Vergangenheit konfrontiert, als es die heutigen Technologien noch nicht gab? Warum mischen wir heute im Wettbewerb der Kulturen um neue Technologien nicht ganz vorne mit? Welche Maßnahmen müssen wir ergreifen, um neue Technologien nicht als etwas Beängstigendes und Feindseliges zu betrachten, sondern als ein Mittel zur Lösung der großen Probleme der Menschheit? Innovationsexperte Dr. Mario Herger stellt in „Future Angst“ die entscheidenden Fragen in Bezug auf Technologie und Fortschritt und zeigt professionelle und zukunftsweisende Lösungen auf. Mit seinem Appell „Design the Future“ bietet Herger einen unkonventionellen und transformativen Ansatz für ein neues, human geprägtes Mindset.
In other words, we are seeing the last gasp of an occupational group, which at best will delay the transition for them and at worst will lead to unnecessary accidents.
This article was also published in German.
