Driving on Thin Ice: Musketeers vs. Safety Advocates

[00:00:00] Introduction and Podcast Overview

[00:00:00] Anthony: You’re listening to There Auto Be A Law, the center for auto safety podcast with executive director, Michael Brooks, chief engineer, Fred Perkins, and hosted by me, Anthony Cimino for over 50 years, the center for auto safety has worked to make cars safer.

[00:00:26] Fred: Hey, listeners. This is going out to the whole wide world. It’s awesome.

[00:00:33] Anthony: And the internet, too. It’s everywhere. Welcome to The Resistance. No, I’m just kidding. It’s another episode of There Auto Be A Law. We we’re back. I hope you enjoyed the last two episodes with Phil Koopman. I know I did.

He’s always a great guest. But now let’s start off.

[00:00:50] Discussion on NHTSA Leadership

[00:00:50] Anthony: One of the questions I’ve had for the past, I don’t know, month is Who’s going to lead NHTSA. And NHTSA said, Hey, some guy who used to work at Apple’s going to lead [00:01:00] NHTSA. And you’re thinking, wow, Apple, that’s really innovative and whatnot. Now they just chose some guy who was a lawyer.

It’s, it’s, we can’t find out much about them. We’re making the assumption that at Apple, he worked on their failed, not failed, just no longer viable or in progress auto project because he seems to be. Just a lobbyist for the new, for car dealers at some point, but now he’s the head of NHTSA.

Good luck, buddy.

[00:01:29] Michael: Yeah, it’s Jonathan Morrison is the name of the nominee for NHTSA administrator. He was, under the first Trump administration, he was brought from I believe a pro dealer, lobbying, legal and regulatory affairs type. Type background and served as chief counsel overseeing the trump administration’s efforts to deregulate and it’s essentially, they did not do many rule makings at all.

I think we’ve noted before they. [00:02:00] probably I think two final rules reached conclusion and maybe a handful of other proposed rules came out during that time, none of which were highly impactful in regards to safety. Whereas the previous administration that was not a deregulatory administration.

I think they reached. Close to 30 final rules, maybe more than that, my count’s never off and proposed a number more. So we’re assuming that he is coming back in as the head of NHTSA to do much of the same, which is a lot of nothing as the head of NHTSA. I expect that rule makings are going to drop significantly, he would be, even as an acting administrator, even if, a lot of wacky nominations have been confirmed so far, this one isn’t quite as wacky as some of those. I don’t see him having too many difficulties being confirmed. In this case we’ll continue to monitor that and see how it goes.

But ultimately, NHTSA hasn’t had an actual confirmed administrator. For a few years now, and the [00:03:00] one that was in there, Steve cliff for was only confirmed for 3 months in the last 8 years. This has had a confirmed administrator for all of 3 months. And arguably, you don’t need a confirmed administrator to get the job done over it.

And it’s or to not get the job done as the case may be here. We’ll see what happens. We’re expecting one of his first actions to be limiting or reducing the role or just completely getting rid of the standing general order, which is collecting crash data on Advanced cruise control vehicles and autonomous vehicles across America.

That hasn’t happened yet, but it’s it could happen any day now. And that’s, really it. We don’t really know what. Mars, who was doing at Apple for the last few years. But this is essentially a continuation of a very long standing process of NITSO where people rotate in and out of industry, which is, a problem for us because there’s obviously going to be some conflicts of [00:04:00] interest.

Right now we’re worried more about Elon Musk conflicts of interest. Having effects over at NHTSA, every time an administration comes in or out, there are going to be folks moving into NHTSA from industry and moving out four years to eight years later when political winds change.

And this isn’t too much different, although we certainly have never been big fans of that process.

[00:04:24] Fred: I think you can stop worrying about conflicts of interest with Musk and his Musketeers because it’s an already established fact. No reason to worry about it anymore.

[00:04:34] Anthony: Yeah. I agree with Fred. Michael, you just got to let it go.

It’s the new rule at NHTSA and every other agency is whatever Elon wants.

[00:04:43] Michael: Yeah, I’m having trouble wrapping my head around the fact that, conflict of interest is a very important principle to a lot of lawyers out there should be important to, the new acting administrator over at NHTSA, Mr.

Morrison as an attorney. We like, I like having attorneys in charge of the National Highway [00:05:00] Traffic Safety Administration because. In many respects, I think it takes an attorney’s approach to really dig in on regulations and the law to get things done. But in this case, it’s the opposite. They’re digging in on regulations and the law to eliminate safety regulations.

And that’s a pretty big concern.

[00:05:20] Fred: Whatever. I think integrity is so last century. This isn’t really something we need to think about anymore.

[00:05:27] Anthony: Yeah. Everything takes care of itself. Everything drives itself. I don’t know what you’re complaining about.

[00:05:33] Michael: I’m just holding out hope that the future might be better.

[00:05:37] Anthony: Oh, it is. It’s just not the future you expected. Yeah. And by better we mean, eh, we’ll define that at some future date. Don’t mind us as this is gonna hurt.

[00:05:47] Vehicle Weight and Safety

[00:05:47] Anthony: Hey, but thinking of things that hurt our friend at IIHS. They have a new report about, it’s a, an article we’re linking to called, Supersizing Vehicles Offers Minimal Safety Benefits, But Substantial Dangers.

Quoting [00:06:00] from the article, For vehicles that weigh less than the fleet average, the risk that occupants will be killed in a crash decreases substantially for every 500 pounds of additional weight. But those benefits top out quickly. For vehicles that weigh more than the fleet average, there’s hardly any decrease in risk for occupants associated with additional poundage by poundage, I assume they mean the weight of the vehicle as suit as you’re gonna get pounded with it.

But my question is for Fred, I don’t think I fully understand this. For vehicles that weigh less than the fleet average, I get that the risk that occupants will be killed in a crash decreases substantially for every 500 pounds of additional weight. So if the cars get heavier, I’m safer. Did you take physics in high school?

[00:06:41] Fred: I yes. Force equals mass times acceleration. One of the, one of the early problems I put to you in physics is what happens when something heavy crashes into something light? And basically The heavy thing continues and the light thing bounces off. You can do this yourself at home by [00:07:00] throwing a tennis ball against the floor.

The floor doesn’t move a hell of a lot, the tennis ball does. Okay, so that’s basically a recoil effect is what we’re talking about. As the weight of a light object approaches the weight of a heavy object, then the recoil tends to be less. So there are fewer acceleration forces on the smaller object as it gets heavier and reaches an equilibrium with the heavier object.

If the two objects are equally heavy and they’re coming together at the same speed, then they’re going to meet in the middle and neither one’s going to rebound. They’ll just crash together. So that’s exactly what’s happening here. With a lighter car, it bounces back, you get a lot of acceleration, very damaging to the people inside the car.

With a heavier car, if it’s equal, it doesn’t bounce back as much, so the acceleration is less. The problem is [00:08:00] that as both vehicles get heavier, the actual amount of energy in the collision increases, right? If you smash two really heavy objects together, the result’s not pretty. Think of one boulder dropping onto another boulder, right?

They both break up. It’s very dramatic. But if you drop a pebble onto a boulder, the boulder doesn’t move, the pebble bounces off. All right, so that’s

[00:08:25] Anthony: basically what’s happening here. So if I have a Hummer EV that’s pushing close to 10, 000 pounds and you have a Hummer EV, if I load up my Hummer EV with a bunch of lead and I weigh, I add 2, 000 pounds of weight to it, I’m going to win on our crash?

[00:08:43] Fred: You’re going to, you’re

[00:08:44] Anthony: going

[00:08:45] Fred: to assure that you both lose. That’s what’s going to happen. Yeah. And you’re just increasing the depth of the hole that you’re going to. Find after the accident wait,

[00:08:56] Anthony: so bigger is not always better

[00:08:58] Fred: bigger is not always better [00:09:00] though And I’m taller so maybe there is something to that but

[00:09:04] Anthony: yeah, No, I think that qualifies it right there cuz you’re tall and I am an average sized man in the Roman Army

[00:09:15] Michael: It’s important here to look at, the 4, 000 pound number in this study, that’s basically the average weight of vehicles on the road and what they were looking at, if you add 500 pounds to a car, an SUV or a pickup that’s already under 4, 000 pounds, you’re looking at saving lives.

You’re going to have 17 fewer deaths in cars per million registered vehicle years is how they work the data out. 13 fewer deaths in SUVs. And in the pickup there it’s still a little shaky. You’re not going to get a whole lot of benefit there, but when you add 500 pounds to cars, SUVs, or pickups that are over 4, 000 pounds, you’re going to see two more deaths per those million registered vehicle years in the car and in the [00:10:00] SUVs.

collisions. You can see two more deaths in the vehicle an SUV collision, but you’re going to see seven more deaths in the vehicle that’s being hit by a pickup. So the pickups are really concerning in this study, and we’ve talked about them a lot and that the. the battery weight that’s being added into electric pickups and how that’s impacting crashes.

Essentially what this study is showing is that for, for every pound you go higher than 4000, you’re somewhat increasing the risk to drivers and other vehicles. You’re not necessarily increasing the risks to yourself as the driver of one of these heavy trucks, but you’re contributing to a huge problem on our roads.

And, the odds of you killing someone in a crash are going up significantly. And it, they mentioned in the article that it’s probably, it probably makes sense. To transition to lighter pickups for people who aren’t carrying heavy payloads, we, [00:11:00] I’ve talked before about the guys who are in a suit and tie and drive their, 6, 000 pound pickup into their office.

It doesn’t make sense and it doesn’t make sense to the insurance institute either. It’s something that I think we need really need to. To get a hold of in America, although I’m not sure if we, the current government has the stomach to regulate in this area.

[00:11:21] Fred: All right there’s another factor here, actually, which is that every car has got energy absorbing mechanisms in the front.

So that when you crash into something, it’ll protect the occupants. That’s what a lot of the crash standards are all about. The problem is if you have two vehicles that are very heavy, you saturate the energy absorbing mechanism if they’re aligned. And once you’ve saturated the energy absorbing mechanism, it can’t absorb anymore.

Another problem that they noted in the article is that the design of the pickup trucks in particular were not aligned vertically. With the [00:12:00] energy absorbing mechanisms of the smaller vehicles, so the pickups and head to head crash, we tend to override the smaller vehicle and just right up over the hood.

And in that case, the energy absorbing mechanism is voided because it’s riding up over on top of the mechanism. This is a technique that the Russians used against the German tanks in the battle of Kursk. But again, I digress.

[00:12:27] Anthony: So what you’re suggesting for me and my Toyota Corolla is I jack up the height of it so I can be taller than a Dodge Durango and I cover the front of it with one of those cattle catcher things.

I’m not

[00:12:42] Fred: actually suggesting that, but

[00:12:44] Anthony: That’s what it sounds like. Have fun with that. I think this is a great idea. Okay. Listeners, tell us what dumb ideas you have for adding weight to your vehicles and becoming a deathtrap on the road. While you’re doing that, go to autosafety. org and click on [00:13:00] Donate.

And the more you donate, the more we’ll listen to your insane ideas. Mainly it’s just my ideas. Your ideas are much better than mine.

[00:13:08] Advancements in Front Crash Prevention

[00:13:08] Anthony: Continuing with the Insurance Institute for Auto Highway Safety. Wow. It’s been a while, folks. Okay.

[00:13:15] Fred: Welcome back, Anthony.

[00:13:16] Anthony: Thanks. Another good article from them is, automakers make big strides in front crash prevention.

Now, we’ve talked about this a lot and back in, when was this, back in April last year they, the IIHS tested a bunch of small SUVs to see how way, they do this with improvements to automatic emergency braking and we’ve talked about this and only three of the small 10 SUVs performed well enough.

And now, less than a year later, 22 of the latest 30 vehicles evaluated earned good or acceptable rating. This is great. Automatic emergency braking works no matter what their lobbyist groups tell you. It’s impossible! It’s too hard! We can’t do this! But less than [00:14:00] a year later, they’re like, Hey, we’re kicking ass doing this.

The cognitive dissonance at their lobbyists must be mind blowing. Or they just don’t care. They don’t care.

[00:14:12] Fred: Did you ever hear the expression? It’s difficult for people to understand something when their paycheck depends on, they’re not understanding it. How do I get one of those paychecks?

[00:14:23] Anthony: What? Say that again. Michael.

[00:14:29] Michael: AAB works, right? AAB definitely works, IHS, I believe this is the first time, this is one of the first times that IHS has run them through it’s new AAB test, their original one, which was the one that essentially the industry voluntary agreement that was in place since 2016, 2017 that was fulfilled in 2023.

Tested to 12 and 25 miles per hour, which, as we’ve noted, is, [00:15:00] kindergarten level speeds. You don’t see a lot of crashes, deaths, injuries at those speeds. That’s something that the new automatic emergency braking rule that came out with was meant to fix, make manufacturers protect. Occupants at higher speeds using automatic emergency braking.

I just updated their tests to a 31 and a 43 MPH test, which all are still somewhat lower than the top speeds of NHTSA’s proposed rule. And. They tested another run of vehicles and these vehicles all per, 22 of them earned a good or acceptable rating, which is certainly looks like an improvement within one year.

Which suggests that the manufacturers shouldn’t have extremely difficult, at least not as difficult as they’re contending, that it is a difficult road to better automatic emergency braking that meets the new NHTSA standard. They’re currently challenging it in court. And the rule is [00:16:00] probably being looked at by the Trump administration for any weakness they can use to try to get it off the books.

But I don’t think that is going to be able to happen in the short term. So, it’s another thing that’s interesting about these tests. If you look at the vehicles that, that, that did well, you will see, the Toyotas, then Toyota is. The Toyota Corolla Hybrid, I believe, is the one vehicle that passed NHTSA’s new test up to 50 miles per hour and did well in the pedestrian detection as well.

You’ll see the Toyotas are doing, Toyotas and Lexuses are doing very well in automatic emergency braking as well as Mercedes and BMW, Hyundai seems to be doing pretty good. They have a, they’re mostly good rated. They’re they’re acceptable in a couple of spots. American manufacturers are mixed, there’s.

They’re boards, marginal, so Chevys get poor ratings, Nissan gets poor ratings, [00:17:00] so as you can see from this story, and I would recommend that everybody take a look at this because it’s a good way to look at what kind of technology is going into the next car you buy if you want good automatic emergency braking, there are certain manufacturers that are currently doing it better than other and making better equipment standard.

Thank you. On vehicles than others. And it also gives you a, an inside view as to why we’re seeing the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which is strongly backed by the American manufacturers, General Motors and Ford, who have fairly low performing or poor performing vehicles in this test.

Why they appear to be opposed to the new automatic emergency braking rule. It’s something that we hope is only going to get better, but a lot of that is going to depend on the industry playing ball and putting safety above profits.

[00:17:50] Fred: Hey, Anthony, if our attentive listeners want to find this reference and go to that article themselves, where would they find that link?[00:18:00]

It’s in the

[00:18:00] Anthony: description for this podcast using whatever podcast service you have. There’ll be descriptions and links to everything, or you can go to autosafety. org slash podcast and you can see all of our previous podcast episodes and there’s links and descriptions all there too.

[00:18:15] Michael: Oh, one thing also that’s worth noting on this.

The vehicles seem to do really badly in detecting and responding to motorcycle targets, which suggests they might also be have problems detecting or responding to cyclists. IHS only test motorcycles, not cyclists, I believe. So it’s something to note that, the vehicles are detecting.

other vehicles, cars in front of them, and most of them are doing a moderate to good job of or acceptable to good job of stopping, but motorcyclists are still at high risk here.

[00:18:55] Anthony: Michael, the question I have for you is The auto industry lobbying group is saying, Hey, [00:19:00] AAB’s impossible, we can’t do it.

The auto manufacturers are like, Hey, we keep doing this really well, we keep getting better, as we’ve just seen with this IHS report. And if the current administration or any future administration says, Hey, AAB’s bullshit, we don’t need this, let’s get rid of it, it’s woke transgender ideology, will the, Is there any situation in the past where auto manufacturers are like let’s remove this stuff.

We’ve just invested, millions and millions of dollars and put into our cars and put a part of marketing campaigns and things like that.

[00:19:33] Michael: I question how much they actually have invested in the technology. I noted in one of their Press releases, they said they’d invested a billion dollars in a B, which sounds like a lot until you know that a B has been developed for 20 years across, 20 different manufacturers, which means they’re investing a grand total of what to 2.

5 million dollars per year, which then doesn’t sound like a whole lot when you consider what the industry is. burned on autonomous [00:20:00] vehicles which is in the tens of billions, if not hundreds of billions of dollars. I’m

[00:20:03] Anthony: talking about responsible auto manufacturers like Toyota like the Japanese manufacturers, like Mercedes, the Germans, not the U S burning billions on G.

If they

[00:20:13] Michael: want to, Ultimately, I think that if automatic emergency braking is succeeding at higher speeds and you’re the manufacturer that has automatic emergency braking that’s protecting pedestrians and motorcyclists and stopping your vehicle reliably at high speeds. People are going to gravitate towards that and you’re going to win out in the sales side, which is ultimately what’s going to matter here.

What I really am fearful of is that the lawsuit by the Alliance would succeed and the AAB rule could be thrown out or the Trump administration finds some way to weaken the rule and manufacturers are then going to continue this incredibly slow rollout. of automatic emergency braking, that, if we could [00:21:00] get good technology into the vehicles now, we’re going to save hundreds or thousands of lives over the next few years before all vehicles have really good automatic emergency braking, which is ultimately the goal.

It’s really a matter of how many people and how many lives can we save in injuries? Can we prevent? By getting this stuff into cars at a reasonable pace versus delaying it and allowing it to be sold as optional equipment for another 20 years.

[00:21:31] Anthony: So I suggest as a consumer, next time you have to go buy a car, when you go into the dealership, say, Hey, does this vehicle have automatic emergency braking?

Does it work at high speeds?

[00:21:39] Michael: Yeah, they’re all going to have automatic emergency braking at this point. You need to determine as a consumer whether it’s the kind that works at 25 miles per hour and offers little, somewhat, some protection, but very small amounts. Or is it going to be the type that detects pedestrians, detects motorcyclists, [00:22:00] and detects other vehicles all at high speeds and actually really prevents some of the major tragedies we see on our roads.

[00:22:08] Fred: So the rationale for the regulation in part is to make sure that every manufacturer who says they have AEB has some minimum level of capacity associated with the AEB. Right now, any manufacturer can say they’ve got AEB, and they don’t have to say it’s bad, it doesn’t work, right? There’s no standard against which people are comparing the AEB.

So that’s a very important part of the rule, not just to say what the maximum capabilities are, but also to make sure that the minimum capabilities are, in fact, embraced by every manufacturer.

[00:22:48] Hands-Free Driving Technology

[00:22:48] Anthony: Alright, I’m going to jump to what I’m going to call gaslighting, is an article from the Washington Post titled, I pitted hands free driving tech against I 95 speeding drivers.

[00:23:00] Whereas a reporter for the Washington Post gets a car that has GM’s super cruise system, their some version of ADAS where you can be hands free on pre mapped highways. And goes for it. And so according to the article, the car’s computer brain decided whether to make way for the onrushing cars, for mother’s reason, to shift into the right lane.

He’s talking about he’s driving in the left lane and some Jackass is behind him, and as happens a lot, they try to say, Hey, let’s see if I can get into your trunk. And again, the car’s computer brain decided, whether to make way for the onrushing car for some other reason, to shift into the right lane.

In the same moment, the speeder swerved towards the same space to pass on the right. This happens constantly you’re in the fast lane, some fool’s trying to get in your trunk, and you’re like, hey, I’ll move out of your way, and they’re like, I’m moving out of my way, and Do this. And of course, this car freaks out he has to immediately take control and avoid this crash.

Further from the article, It was a startling reminder that this [00:24:00] technology required me to exercise a high degree of vigilance, even while riding along in a mode that functions like autopilot. This is a perfect example, folks, of your car is not driving yourself. No matter what they say. So the gaslighting is to the entire automotive industry that claims they have some autopilot like function.

Mic drop.

[00:24:21] Michael: Yeah, this was a pretty good article. Somewhat impartial. The guy said that, his last line in the article is, my experience using SuperCrew suggests even a brief lapse by computer or driver could have serious consequences, which it’s a huge concern that, that’s even a statement about a system that is.

Pretty clearly not a safety system. The article notes that GM is very carefully trying to advertise this system without promoting it as a safety system. It is purely a convenient system. And that’s something I think all of our [00:25:00] listeners need to understand. All of your adaptive cruise control systems are not there to keep you safe.

They are a essentially a feature of the vehicle that is for convenience. It’s so that you can do whatever you have to do, whatever you’ve seen that you think you need to do while your vehicle is moving down the road at speed and think you can get away with it without paying it. Full attention to the driving task.

I don’t, I personally just don’t have a use for these systems at the moment because I’m too scared. Maybe I’m a weenie, whatever it is. I feel like I will get distracted. I, I’m fairly distractible at the base level and, in, in a vehicle where my car is changing lanes and keeping distance from other cars and essentially.

Performing a lot of the tasks that I need to on the interstate for me. I have no doubt that my mind is going to drift and that [00:26:00] when that moment comes that I need to take over, I’m not going to be my, I’m not going to be there mentally and available to take over. And so it’s, there’s a trade off here and I don’t think the trade off is good.

You’re trading convenience for an increased risk of a crash. And I think that’s just. It’s not where we need to be headed as a country, even though it looks like that’s where we’re going as we see so many manufacturers advertising all of these convenience features and even starting to say, hey, you can check your email and do all these other things.

While you’re supposed to be maintaining supervision over the vehicle is, it doesn’t make sense to me. There’s a logical incongruence there that just, it doesn’t work in the end. And I think ultimately we’re going to see people who are seeking convenience or leisure time in their car being killed like they are right now.

And Tesla’s with autopilot or full self drive. It’s only a matter of time. We’ve seen. Incidents with [00:27:00] blue crews not detecting stationary vehicles, all these systems are being built in different ways and all of them have their own little particular features that are all directed at driver convenience, but don’t do a whole lot for the safety side.

So I’d have to say at this point, based on everything we’ve seen about advanced driver assistance systems, we’re not big fans.

[00:27:24] Fred: There’s another factor related to that, Michael, I think, which is that these capabilities are being advertised as convenience features. In fact, they’re not, because they’re actually adding to the workload of the driver, because not only do you have to be attentive to everything that’s happening around you, but you also have to monitor the performance of this automated system that’s supposed to be taking care of these.

Issues around here. So you not only have to do everything that you need to do when you’re driving, but you also have to become a computer mechanic and make sure that everything that’s supposed to be happening with the [00:28:00] computer, driving your car is in fact happening. So I think that the argument that it in fact reduces your workload is very weak.

I think in reality, it increases your workload. Increases the hazard associated with driving and really makes you less likely to reach your destination safely.

[00:28:23] Anthony: Alright, I’ll tie this example to my favorite thing to do now, which is sailing. And so I was just taking a sailing course, and we have to change who’s on the helm, who’s driving the boat, every few hours, because your attention’s gonna wane.

And we don’t have onrushing traffic at us. There’s no imminent danger, really, when you’re out of port, you’re out there. But your attention’s gonna wane, and you can see that whoever’s driving the boats they start to fall off their attention. We had an issue where we had maybe 10 minutes warning before we can see a cruise ship coming towards us And we didn’t know what they’re gonna do.

So you’d get on the radio and be like, hey, what’s your intention? They told us. Oh great. We’ll do this. [00:29:00] You do that. There’s no way to do that in an automobile There’s no way to be asking the guy behind you. What’s your intention? I know what his intention is. His intention is trying to run me over So to have some sort of automated way to do this, I think is naive I just want to talk about sailing.

That’s it. Sorry

[00:29:16] Fred: Basically you had full self sailing with human supervision, so you’re doing the same thing that Waymo’s

[00:29:21] Anthony: doing. But with much less danger involved. One would hope.

[00:29:27] Fred: Pending rocks. Yeah.

[00:29:28] Anthony: Yes. So that’s my gaslight. I painted the entire aass industry. Fred, do you got a gaslight?

Oh, I do. Oh boy. This is

[00:29:36] Fred: actually a good one. I think depending on who, who’s listening, it gives this multidimensional, oh shit. Let me, . I know your brother wants some really quick, what the hell did I do with that? ?

[00:29:48] Anthony: Is a timed test, Fred. Come on, you can’t even Come on. I gotta, I’ll start

[00:29:53] Fred: working on you got one?

Wait. Yeah, mine Yeah, Mine is

[00:29:56] Michael: Mine is going directly to just this insanity that, [00:30:00] that, of an article Anthony sent out or last I don’t know if you were on a boat or not when you sent that to me. I was on a boat. It’s It goes to these, the parents in San Francisco who are sticking their children into robo taxis alone.

And I believe against the terms of service that Waymo requires them to agree with. I don’t think Waymo wants this happening either. But it’s these people who are just giving these glowing reviews of. Of Waymo taking their daughter or their son to school or to, to other places when the parents don’t have time to do that themselves or don’t want to do it themselves.

And, uh, they’re saying things like, oh they wouldn’t feel comfortable in an Uber or Lyft. I can. see that argument. If you have a minor child sticking them into a car with a stranger, kid can feel risky. That’s [00:31:00] perfectly understandable. But then sticking them into an autonomous vehicle where that child, depending on their age is going to have to communicate with, if something happens during the drive, they need to stop the car, have to communicate with the vehicle.

Are they going to be?

[00:31:27] Waymo’s Safety Concerns and Unsupervised Children

[00:31:27] Michael: But ultimately, you’re, if Waymo has an operating design domain for safety which we know they do right now, that operating design domain does not include transporting. Children who are unsupervised in the vehicles because it’s against their terms of service. They’re not even anticipating this.

Maybe they should now that this article has come out. But this is a problem. It’s something, I think there was a gray area there with Uber as well and Lyft. And it’s probably a gray area that should be resolved before we [00:32:00] start throwing, toddlers into autonomous vehicles to send them to daycare.

There need to be some rules, if not, state laws around, around this kind of issue, because this is exactly the type of area where a state would traditionally regulate. And if, it’s something that needs to be resolved before autonomous vehicles. Start creeping onto the roads and many more cities across America.

[00:32:22] Anthony: Yeah, we’re linking to this article. It’s in the SF Standard and I’m gonna quote from it. It was instantly awesome, said the San Francisco resident Chris, who chose to only use his first name because he didn’t want to have his Waymo account banned, and for Child Protective Services to take his kids away.

We don’t have to worry about her getting home ever. Oh God, you should like, man, that’s just bad. Except

[00:32:45] Michael: for that time where she was circling a parking lot for two hours. .

[00:32:48] Anthony: Yeah. And this is the thing that blows me away, like this is not needed at all. ’cause he says his daughter T typically takes the bus to school and either Chris or his wife take her home.

Why doesn’t the bus take her home [00:33:00] too? If it takes her to school, it’s just bye. It’s insane. Later in the article he says he doesn’t regret using Waymo extra legally. Basically what you were just talking about, Michael, where it’s hey, these are the terms of service, and he’s yeah, whatever, I’ll put a nine year old girl in the car.

I am willing to skirt the rules because I love it so much. Yeah. Ah. It’s people are nuts. This is what it comes down to. People are dumb. Just dumb. That’s a good gaslight. Fred, I don’t think you have a chance of beating this one, especially you say you’re multidimensional.

[00:33:33] Fred: It

[00:33:34] Anthony: is,

[00:33:34] Fred: and somehow I pushed the wrong button and I destroyed it.

So Oh, bummer. But I’ll try to do it from memory. So forgive me if I missed a couple of details.

[00:33:43] The Chamber of Progress: A Gaslight

[00:33:43] Fred: But the American, there was the Automated Vehicle Industry Association, put out a press release saying that they had seen a report from the Chamber of Progress that said that the AVs are really a good thing and they [00:34:00] reduce safety and all that.

So my question to you, Anthony, is why does the Chamber even work on something like this? What is the Chamber of Progress? Oh, you didn’t fall for it. Are you talking about the Chamber

[00:34:11] Michael: of Commerce? Yeah.

[00:34:13] Fred: Yeah. That was the first the first dimension of this gashlight is that what the hell is the Chamber of Progress?

And I immediately went to the Chamber of Commerce website to try to verify this. And of course, there’s nothing there. So I backed into looking at the Chamber of Progress and it turns out that the Chamber of Progress is essentially a lost Harry Potter novel. There is an advocacy group with all the same members as the Automated Vehicle Industry Association.

So really this whole report is self referential. But if you go to the chamberofprogress. org website, it turns out that they’ve appropriated all of the symbols and the memes associated with progressive politics. And put it into a [00:35:00] package that advocates for self driving vehicles. So it was, it’s a wonderful gaslight because number 1, it’s not accurate.

Number 2 is self referential. And number 3, it’s very confusing because it really refers to. The Chamber of Progress, which doesn’t actually exist and confuses people about the origin of this. Because, I’m, as I’m very sophisticated and I went to the Chamber of Commerce website to try to verify this as well.

So anyway, my congratulations to AVIA for outstanding work on a gaslight for this week.

[00:35:40] Anthony: That is an excellent one. I love the Chamber of Progress. That little wizard kid, he’s gonna get out of it one day. But, Michael wins this week’s Gaslight. I’m sayin it. He won. That was really good. Chamber of Progress.

Ridiculous. Hey, Fred, are you ready for for to continue with your [00:36:00] dulcet tones and give us the Tao? Ah, I can do that. Yes, sir. I haven’t even destroyed this document,

[00:36:06] Fred: so I’m making progress too.

[00:36:08] Equity Issues and the Primacy of Capital

[00:36:08] Fred: Anthony, have you ever thought about purchasing an equity new issue? Read a prospectus.

[00:36:14] Anthony: Wait, I’ve read a prospectus.

I don’t know what an equine new issue is. Wait, equine.

[00:36:19] Fred: Whenever an equity has a new issue, they send out a prospectus. Yes, I’ve read a prospectus, which people’s supposed to read and be careful and, it’s interesting that if you read the prospectus, it’s full of warnings. It’s every one of them says past performance is no guarantee of future results, and then they have a whole long list of risk factors for investors to make sure that you understand the risks before you put your money into it.

And I thought as I thought about this, it’s interesting that people have, people in America, the legal system has much more regard for capital than they do for human lives. Because if you are investing money in a trip in a Waymo, nobody says to [00:37:00] you, past performance is no guarantee of future results, and here are the risk factors associated with using Waymo.

So it’s I’ve thought about why is it that capital, the dollars, is so much more important than human life in America, and this really goes back to a fundamental, Property or fundamental part of history, which is the primacy of capital over. Over human lives, derives from something called war capitalism versus industrial capitalism.

[00:37:31] Anthony: Have you been reading Karl Marx again?

[00:37:33] Fred: No, actually, this, I’ve been reading Empire of Cotton by Sven Becker, who looked at the progress of cotton manufacturing, and all of the military activities and slavery and subjugation that was required. To preserve the capital invested in cotton and cotton production, and actually a necessary part of this whole capital structure was [00:38:00] the proliferation of slavery, primarily in the American South to preserve and defend the capital, the dollars that were being invested by both the North and the South in the production of cotton.

So this actually, it seems to me. The fact that people are fed bullshit by the way, by the AV manufacturers and have their lives put at risk without any warning actually harkens back to the. Same kind of litigation that was required to promote slavery in the American South. This pervades all the labor practices in America, but anyway, that’s not exactly on point, I don’t think, but, if we go back, but if you go back to our friends at, at Cruise Kyle was very fond of saying they never drive distracted, drowsy, or drunk, but he never talked about past performances, no guarantee of future results, never talked about the risk factors associated with [00:39:00] the AVs. So I wonder how that’s working out for Kyle these days.

[00:39:04] Anthony: His company doesn’t exist anymore and they got rid of him.

[00:39:08] Fred: Ah, I see. So you think maybe integrity In development of AVs would be a better idea in the long run than feeding people bullshit about the safety of the vehicles.

[00:39:19] Anthony: How’s your retirement portfolio doing?

[00:39:22] Fred: Ah,

[00:39:24] Anthony: that’s

[00:39:25] Fred: another, anyway, that’s the tal of this week, the relationship between war capitalism, industrial capitalism, slave laws in the United States, and the fact that getting into a Navy is full of undocumented risk that you might want to think about.

[00:39:43] Anthony: I like that one. I like the the past performance is no guarantee of future results especially with the AV industry because who knows what version software you’re running. There’s no past performance if they’ve just upgraded everything. Why

[00:39:57] Fred: is it, why is it before you put a dollar [00:40:00] into a stock purchase, you get this warning, but when you put your life at risk getting into an AV, you don’t get any similar warning.

That’s why

[00:40:09] Anthony: I put all my money into meme coins. That’s right. If you have a bunch of cryptocurrency nonsense and you’re like, I gotta get rid of this money, go to auto safety.org and click on donate. No, we do not accept cryptocurrency. But you can convert cryptocurrency into real currency. Yeah. That fiat currency, not fiat, the cars fiat currency.

And we’ll gladly take that. Why don’t we say take cryptocurrency? I don’t know. It’s, it sounds annoying.

[00:40:35] Fred: Because cryptocurrency is basically just a momentarily legal form of Ponzi schemes. It’s not real money, but

[00:40:45] Anthony: if you have a lot of cryptocurrency, ignore what Fred’s saying, we love it. Just, just sell now and support us anyway.

Hey, let’s let’s talk about you guys ever hear the Ford Pinto. Had one. You had one?

[00:40:58] Fred: Yeah.

[00:40:59] Anthony: Why? Did you [00:41:00] lose your bet?

[00:41:01] Fred: Why? Because I didn’t have any money and the woman I married had one. So there you go.

[00:41:05] Anthony: Oh. Okay. Michael, you’ve heard of it,

[00:41:07] Michael: right? I rode in one often as a child. We had a green wagon with wood panel, fake wood panel on the side.

It was an excellent little car. But it was not one of the ones that was exploding I think it came after, after that era.

[00:41:23] Anthony: After they moved the the gas tank? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:41:25] Cybertruck Controversies and Safety Concerns

[00:41:25] Anthony: Mother Jones has an article where they’re saying the Cybertrucks are deadlier than the Ford Pinto. An analysis, quoting from the article, an analysis published Thursday by the auto news website Fuel Arc, which I’ve never heard of, found that in their one year of existence, the approximately 34, 000 Cybertrucks on the roads had five fire fatalities, giving them a fatality rate of 14.

5 per 100, 000 units. That’s 17 times the fatality rate of the Ford Pintos. But okay, so I’ve got a couple questions on this, Michael, because [00:42:00] I can, you made that sound, which means I don’t think so.

[00:42:04] Michael: I really appreciated Mother Jones coverage on the original Ford Pinto issue, which I think took place maybe before I was born, early 70s in this case, they’re.

Quoting a study from a website called fuel arc that gives all these numbers that I’m not even gonna repeat about a fatality rate that’s higher than the Ford Pintos, but they’re, this website that did this fatality rate, I put that in quotes analysis. Counted the fatality of the guy who shot himself in the head and packed the vehicle with fireworks and lit it on fire outside of the Trump International Hotel in Vegas.

That is not good crash data, right? That is a really bad approach to crash data. There wasn’t a crash. The Cybertruck had literally nothing to do with the death that happened there or the fire. [00:43:00] And so it’s instantly, I think we need to dismiss. That study and that is the basis of this article, which I’m just going to have to that could have been my gas light of the week, but I didn’t want to throw them under the bus, but now I’m doing it.

There you go. That’s just terrible crash data. And I don’t, I also don’t see how they’ve had five fire fatalities in a year, but they’re doing a fatality rate. By unit sold and, it’s just an, it’s an odd comparison. I just, I don’t think that, that fatality rate study is going to hold up under any scrutiny.

Even mine.

[00:43:38] Anthony: Wow. But we know the Cybertruck has been pretty much a, I’m going to say it, a crappy vehicle. It’s Hasn’t been out that long. It’s already had seven recalls the most recent being December 17th. And that was probably their last recall ever, because that was under a different administration.

And this new administration, there’ll never be a recall against Cybertruck. They’ll be the opposite. [00:44:00] They’ll be the, hey, this is a feature.

[00:44:02] Michael: We’ll see. Cybertruck is, the Cybertruck has its own little life online, right? I think you may have noticed a week or two ago where there was a, supposedly the state department was going to spend 400 million in a contract for Cybertrucks.

That was the reference to Cybertrucks was removed pretty quickly from that bid. And it doesn’t look like that’s happening. Although I would, I don’t know why any government agency that wants to get from point A to point B safely would be investing in cyber trucks. That didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.

Who knows it could still happen. They’re just trying to hide it. We never know these days. And I’ll add the cyber truck actually. was tested by NCAP recently, and it just came out and they got, five stars in the frontal crash ratings, five stars in the side crash ratings, four stars in rollover ratings.

So it’s not perfect, but what NCAP doesn’t [00:45:00] take into account are things like this, right? The fuel integrity of the vehicle, which, the Cybertrucks do seem to be catching on fire at a higher rate than your average. vehicle. They also are incredibly heavy and made out of materials that are somewhat unusual for the industry.

And we think they’re going to have negative impacts on anyone who comes into contact with them in a collision based on the weight and the cold rolled stainless steel and all of the. Armor and all the junk that’s been going into these cars. Cyber trucks are definitely way down on our list of favorite vehicle.

And probably one of the most besides being the ugliest vehicle on the road. And besides, you drive one, I’ve said it before, you just look like a dick. Besides all of that they do have a concerning record in, in, in And fire fatalities, which this article is attempting to point out, unfortunately, using a study that is fundamentally flawed itself.

[00:45:58] Anthony: So you heard it here [00:46:00] first, folks. The man who said, I might be a weenie says, if you drive a cyber truck, you look like a dick. I think that sums it up perfectly. Hey, Fred, I got a question for you. Let’s pretend you run a U. S. auto manufacturer. Do you have active hostility towards the people who bought your cars, or do you think that they’re good people?

[00:46:21] Fred: I don’t care as long as they pay.

[00:46:23] Anthony: Ah that’s very Why don’t I have an opinion? That’s very different than what Jeep’s doing, because Jeep’s saying, hey, customers, we think you suck.

[00:46:31] Jeep’s Infotainment Ads: A Dangerous Distraction

[00:46:31] Anthony: Jeep is putting pop up ads in their infotainment systems. That’s very That’s right, you’re driving along using your infotainment system because you’ve got a map on it.

You don’t know where you’re going, and then you pull up to a stop sign or a stoplight and you stop the vehicle. And now it’s boom! Buy a hot dog. Boom! Here’s a way to regrow your hair. Boom! Here’s some other ridiculous ad. Your map’s gone. You’re confused because Jeep’s saying, Hey, here’s an ad that’s important for [00:47:00] you.

And now as the driver, you’re panicked going, Why did I buy a Jeep? And how do I close this ad? And so then you gotta click this closed, and go back to your ad. And you’re like go back to your map. And then you’re going down, and then, oh, another stop sign, stoplight, another ad. So I think if you own a Jeep, you’re never gonna see anybody stop the car ever again.

Because it just makes the car more dangerous. I don’t understand why people do this. That’s why

[00:47:25] Fred: AI is so great because it allows those ARDS, those ads to be carefully targeted to you. Yeah,

[00:47:33] Michael: This is a mess. It’s, if this is happening while the vehicle is in operation, it’s, this kind of thing should be banned.

First of all, you’re requiring someone driving a car to look over to their touch screen, read the message and X out of it. While they’re driving the car. That’s a terrible idea. Stellantis Jeep is claiming it was a temporary software glitch. I think that’s, a lot of cover in [00:48:00] their ass there.

It sounds like something that was just a really bad idea, but a way to, help them make some more profits as their share of the market is. dipping, it’s a terrible idea. There should not be ads. If an ad pops up when you park your car in the driveway, or maybe even right when you start the car in your driveway, it’s one thing, but the second that vehicle transmission goes into gear, those ads should be automatically touchscreen that has maps or, any type of safety related function in the vehicle.

[00:48:35] Anthony: There should never be any advertising inside my vehicle at all, Michael. Nope. Those I don’t care if I’m parked, I’m in a garage, anything. If I’ve paid good money for this vehicle, why am I seeing an ad for, watermelon spritzers? Sure, I love a watermelon spritzer just as the next person, but I don’t need to have an ad for it.

I thought Jeep actually claimed that this was part of their deal with SiriusXM. That Oh, we have to do this. So they claim

[00:48:59] Michael: that as [00:49:00] well, the ad that I saw that was popping by the vehicles when it was first reported was an ad for a, some type of Stellantis extended warranty. So this was something that was popping up, on vehicles that were, a year old too.

They’re not even in the position to be even Thinking about an extended warranty at that point, which makes it double stupid.

[00:49:21] Anthony: I think it’d be a great place for other manufacturers to buy ad space. Hate this pop up ad? Go buy a Honda. Anyway,

[00:49:31] Fred: let’s jump into recalls. Oh, sorry. I think it’s a great idea because, think if you had teenage children, they’re borrowing your car, they’re, getting on a secluded.

Lovers lane somewhere and climbing into the backseat. It would be really great if the cameras, look at them and a message comes over from you saying get back in the front seat and don’t do that. I think it’s, the real issue here is who owns that space, who owns that, that visual.

Image that’s appearing [00:50:00] on your screen. Is it you, the owner of the car or is it somebody else? And I think the companies are pushing very hard to say, no, we own this screen. You’re just borrowing it for some driving purposes, but we really own it. And we can do with whatever we want. The same way that they want to lease you the seat warmer and other capabilities that you thought you were buying in the car.

They’re really creeping towards. Getting you to finance a vehicle that allows them to do value added programming after the fact that addresses their captive audience. You win the car.

[00:50:40] Anthony: All right, you’ve got my vote. No more cars, people. Let’s get rid of them. Hey, if we get rid of cars, we’ve solved all the auto safety issues.

Boom! Ha! Winning. I don’t know, can’t believe you guys haven’t figured this out over the last 50 years. All right, let’s go to recalls.

[00:50:55] Toyota and GM Recalls: Safety Alerts

[00:50:55] Anthony: Let’s start up with General Motors. 70, 768 vehicles. The [00:51:00] 2022 GMC Sierra 1500. Oh, thank God. I was afraid it was going to be a whole bunch of different ones, but this is their hood molding.

The front grill deflector detaches unexpectedly while driving. That’s not good. Deflectors flying off the car.

[00:51:16] Michael: Yeah, basically there’s a chrome grill deflector. It’s only the chrome one. So if you don’t have a chrome one, I don’t know, on your 2022 Sierra 1500, then you don’t have to worry, but they were actually, GM said they got 1200 plus chrome.

Field complaints related to this problem. So there were a lot of Chrome deflectors flying off of GMC Sierras in the past couple of years and including four allegations of an accident that occurred due to this problem. So there’s your safety issue. Essentially they did a mid cycle enhancement was what it was called, but it looks like that mid cycle enhancement for those Sierras.

Actually, was, a mid cycle degrading of their vehicles [00:52:00] because this chrome deflector problem started right after that. Essentially the attachment points for these, I guess it’s like emblem or something that’s on the front grill of the vehicle. The attachment point didn’t adequately withstand expected loads is how they phrase it in their technical jargon.

But that one. It looks like it’s going to be a couple of months. It looks like they’re taking their time getting the notifications out to owners, which suggests they don’t have a remedy yet. And so owners may be waiting even further past March for a fix for this.

[00:52:33] Anthony: Next up Toyota. 40, 922 vehicles, the 2025 Toyota Camry Hybrid, the Lexus NX250, the NX350, three, a whole bunch of, oh my, pages and pages.

They are they have non compliance, huh? The second row center seat belt incorrect tooling during a hot knife cutting process, I love a hot knife cutting process. The seat belt [00:53:00] webbing may have been damaged. That’s not good. And it violates which which federal motor vehicle safety standard, Michael?

Come on.

[00:53:06] Michael: Come on. That one’s 209 in this one. I was looking for 209

[00:53:10] Anthony: paragraph S 4. 2 B. Yeah, we’re not getting that granular.

[00:53:16] Michael: But this one is interesting. They’ve discovered through their research that less than, 0. 1 percent of all of the seatbelt webbing in these vehicles is actually damaged, but they’re going to require everyone who owns one of these 40, 000 or so vehicles to bring their vehicles in because they don’t know which vehicles have this problem.

So when you get a notice for this recall, definitely take your vehicle in. As we talk about a lot, seatbelts are the, they’re number one in safety by far. Over airbags, over any type of technology that’s come out in the last 20 years. And if your seatbelt webbing is damaged, you may have some serious issues in a crash.

[00:54:00] Anyone who owns a 24 to 25 Toyota or Lexus looks like you’re going to be finding out about this in late March, early April be sure to go to your dealer and have your vehicle inspected to make sure you’re not one of those 0. 1 percent of the folks affected.

[00:54:15] Anthony: Excellent. Last up. Another surprise, Toyota!

106, 061 vehicles, the 2024 to 2025 Toyota Tacoma. And it is just that, this is a flexible hose rear brake hose issue. The four wheel drive vehicles are equipped with a 16 inch brake systems where the brake hoses attached to a rear brake calibers transfer brake fluid under hydraulic pressure. And they’re they’re leaking, there’s mud and buildup and the mud and dirt can contact the brake hoses and they may damage and wear through the brake hoses causing a brake fluid leak.

So if you’re if you’re using this truck, as a truck person would, and you’re going off road, and you’re like, Hey let’s drive through the mud and go vroom, rah, heh. All that mud and that dirt can get up there and degrade these brake hoses. And [00:55:00] but if you’re just a guy wearing a suit and a cowboy hat just driving from office park to office park, eh, don’t worry about it.

[00:55:06] Michael: Yeah, I didn’t say worry about it anyway. Who knows what’s gonna happen with road debris getting up in there. And, essentially, it looks like they’ve got a fix ready for this. They’re gonna replace the rear. Brake hoses with improved models. Both of your rear brake hoses are going to be replaced.

So go in and get your brand new brake hoses. And you can expect to hear about that from Toyota and hopefully a repair will be available by early April.

[00:55:33] Anthony: All right.

[00:55:33] Conclusion and Farewell

[00:55:33] Anthony: And with that is another episode of the show. Everyone happy, excited. I’m happy. Glad to be back. All right, great. Till next week, folks please subscribe, give five stars, rate us two thumbs up, three thumbs up.

I don’t know what your anatomy is like. I don’t know how many thumbs you got.

[00:55:52] Michael: Polydactyls everywhere.

[00:55:54] Anthony: Polydactyls everywhere. Thanks everyone. Bye bye. Bye bye. [00:56:00]

[00:56:00] Fred: For more information, visit www. autosafety. org.