TV ads make the case for driverless taxis on New York streets

Television spots aimed at voters and a run of informational meetings across the state are the opening move of a newly formed nonprofit that wants New York to open its streets to driverless taxis.

Former City Council Speaker Christine Quinn is among the people behind the group, A Better Road Forward. “For too many New Yorkers, safe and reliable ways to get around still depend on where you live,” Quinn said, citing late shifts, subway trains that never arrive and blocks people would rather not walk alone after dark.

Waymo, owned by Google, runs the most visible fleet in the business, and its New York City pilot for autonomous driving ran out in March. Its vehicles still circulate here gathering data, though a person sits behind the wheel. An upstate expansion the company had planned was scrapped by Gov. Kathy Hochul after taxi drivers and unions objected.

What the retracted robotaxi study got wrong

The campaign arrives after a setback for the other side. Groups opposed to robotaxis put out a report in August arguing the vehicles were more dangerous than taxis and ride-hail cars, then pulled a substantial section of it once the crash math was found to be improper.

Mismatched definitions were the trouble. On one side sat New York City’s tightly drawn critical injury standard, reserved for harm requiring life sustaining medical support in an intensive care unit. On the other sat Waymo’s serious injury label, a wider band that takes in broken bones, deep lacerations and other major harm that does not necessarily threaten a life. Corrected, the company came out at 0.712 injury crashes per million miles driven nationally, against 1.871 for taxis and for-hire vehicles in New York City, leaving Waymo roughly 62% below. The reworked look at wrecks that killed or badly hurt someone still rests on a total of three Waymo crashes in the whole country, two of them in the Bay Area and a third whose location went unstated. The report also surfaced not long after Sam Schwartz published Autokill, a novel built around a terrorist plot involving autonomous vehicles.

How a company gets permission to test in New York

The pilot remains open to applicants, who go through the State Department of Motor Vehicles and the city Department of Transportation. Waymo, for its part, said through a spokesperson that it is eager to work with the administration and with state leaders on a policy framework allowing autonomous vehicles to be deployed.