Teamsters Fight Back Against the Horrible Specter of Fewer Traffic Deaths
And every progressive anti-growth pathology is embodied in the process
A self-driving car company takes initial steps to introduce its vehicles to a city. Residents — led by the Teamsters Union — push back, arguing that self-driving cars are unsafe. This happens even though the most comprehensive, peer-reviewed study on the impact of that company’s impact found that their cars dramatically reduced all types of crashes, sometimes as much as 96 percent. Despite data suggesting that driverless cars could reduce injuries and fatalities, city council members appear to side with the Teamsters, using the bizarre argument that the safer cars threaten safety.
Now: What wrinkle could make this already-ridiculous scenario the most absurd, counterfactual bullshit you’ve heard in a good long while? That’s right: This all happened in Boston, a city where the streets are already a Hobbesian hell fight where the maladjusted battle the insane. The statistical and anecdotal evidence suggest that driving in Boston is less safe than slathering yourself with elk’s blood and jumping into the tiger pen at the zoo. Driving in Boston is like Mario Kart, except instead of turtle shells, drivers throw empty Dunkin cups and bespoke Northeastern ethnic slurs. That is the status quo that the Boston City Council seems poised to protect.
At a recent hearing, several Council members acted as if Boston isn’t already known as the city where the social contract between drivers has been shivved in a prison shower and left to die. City Councilor Benjamin Weber thought it was “concerning” that Waymo is mapping the city (nobody tell Ben Weber that detailed 3D maps of Boston already exist on the internet for free — his head will explode). City Councilor Erin Murphy thought it important that “everyone’s voice is heard before anything happens” (everyone’s voice before anything happens?). But the marquee quote of the day came from City Councilor Julia Mejia, who took extreme offense to Waymo taxis being referred to as “drivers” (as reported by Timothy B. Lee):
When a Waymo representative mentioned the Waymo Driver—the company’s name for its self-driving software, Mejia objected. “Waymo is not a driver. Waymo is a robot,” she said. Mejia considered it “very triggering” for Waymo to use the term “driver” to describe a technology rather than a person.