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22 Oct, 10 tweets, 5 min read
In @Slate, my take on the controversy around Dr. Missy Cummings’ appointment at @NHTSAgov — and what it means for the Biden admin's ability to address the recklessness of Tesla Autopilot and Full-Self Driving.

A 🧵:
slate.com/technology/202…
A Duke professor and human factors expert, Cummings is well qualified for the role, which requires working w/carmakers, tech co's, gov officials, and advocacy groups.

A backlash has come from the company whose pattern of disregarding safety gives it the most to lose: Tesla. Image
Cummings has been vocal about the dangers of Autopilot and Full-Self Driving (I interviewed her for this piece last December).

But that doesn't mean she's biased -- it makes her realistic and knowledgable, like Lina Khan criticizing Facebook.
slate.com/technology/202…
The safety risks of Autopilot and Full-Self Driving have been public for some time (lack of serious driver monitoring system, failure to restrict Autopilot to its ODD, etc.).

If you're unfamiliar, here's a primer via @NTSB.
theverge.com/2020/2/25/2115… Image
Had Trump's DOT done its job, Tesla could’ve addressed Autopilot's risks years ago. But that didn’t happen, so now the Biden admin must clean up the mess—while 1000s of Tesla fans feel Autopilot is now “theirs.”

They will be livid if it’s regulated. See tweet below (now deleted) Image
Egged on by Elon Musk, Tesla’s online army has now hounded Cummings into deleting her Twitter account.

Many of these attacks have been personal, misogynistic, and disturbing (Note: they don't reflect all Tesla supporters).

Here's a collection making the rounds. Image
Beyond the bullying and sexism, the flareup over Cummings’ appointment shows how challenging it will be to protect American road users from Tesla’s recklessness. A backlash is inevitable.

The Biden admin should steel itself—and carry on.
slate.com/technology/202…
This is fair. I try to stay away from Tesla's share price (shouldn't matter for safety), but a chunk of the online freakout seems to be coming from people worried about NHTSA's potential impact on their portfolio.
Prof Cummings asked Duke University to check for any conflicts of issues, and she received approval. I trust Duke.
For those following this story, I recommend this new piece from @A_W_Gordon, which provides additional info about Prof Cummings' background.
vice.com/en/article/dyp…

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More from @DavidZipper

David Zipper Profile picture
23 Oct
I’m in the Washington Post today, sharing 5 myths about highways.

Here’s a 🧵 with a quick tour:
washingtonpost.com/outlook/five-m…
Myth 1⃣: "Wider highways move traffic faster"

Nope! Expanded highways attract more car trips, which inevitably slows traffic down again. You can blame induced demand, a theory that economists (but not construction-loving state DOTs) have long accepted.
bloomberg.com/news/features/…
Myth 2⃣: "94% of human crashes are caused by human error"

Nope! Blaming the driver alone lets others off the hook, including engineers who design dangerous roads, car companies building heavier & taller SUVs/trucks, and cities underinvesting in sidewalks.
Read 7 tweets
David Zipper Profile picture
12 Oct
Are autonomous vehicles just a tech-y way to codify the car’s dominance of American cities?

That’s what historian Peter Norton argues in his new book, Autonorama.

My conversation with him, in @CityLab bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Norton claims that AVs are the latest in a long line of futuristic automotive technologies that promised to turn cities into car-centric utopias.

It never works out, but there’s always another amazing new invention to captivate us.
sensesatlas.com/territory/arch…
Meanwhile, those envisioning a tech-powered automotive nirvana are distracted from mundane (but proven) ways to improve mobility networks.

Examples: Expanding transit service, installing bike lanes, and building densely around transportation nodes.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Read 4 tweets
David Zipper Profile picture
10 Oct
Public officials could powerfully improve urban lives by emphasizing **access** (easily reachable destinations) instead of **speed** (fast roads + rail).

A 🧵 about this new-ish book (2019), which explains why -- and how. Image
"Access" is tough to define in a tweet, so here's a useful illustration from @humantransit and his team. humantransit.org/2021/03/basics…

The concept seems intuitive, but its implications are profound. ImageImageImageImage
For instance, we shouldn't gripe about traffic congestion in a city like NYC without also acknowledging the proximity of destinations.

Slower speeds matter less if you’re only going a miles or two instead of 20 or 30. Image
Read 7 tweets
David Zipper Profile picture
28 Sep
Economists and urban planners have known for decades that highway expansions can't solve traffic congestion.

Why, then, do so many states keep widening their roads?

A 🧵 about my deep dive in @CityLab
bloomberg.com/news/features/…
Economist Anthony Downs gets credit for the idea of induced demand, but its roots go back *much* further than his 1962 article.

In 1927, engineer Arthur S. Tuttle warned that new urban roads “would be filled immediately by traffic which is now repressed because of congestion.”
In the 1920s and 1930s city officials worried about wooing suburbanites to shop and work, so they shrunk their sidewalks and ripped up public space to accommodate more cars.

It was a disaster. Congestion only grew.
stltoday.com/news/archives/…
Read 14 tweets
David Zipper Profile picture
7 Sep
Flashy, complicated infotainment systems are creating a growing safety risk. And it's likely to get worse.

A 🧵 about my investigation, in @Slate
slate.com/business/2021/…
Why worry about infotainment systems? They’re harmless and fun, right?

Well, not necessarily. A study by the AAA Foundation found that rerouting a destination can distract a driver for up to 40 seconds—enough time to cover half a mile at 50 mph.
newsroom.aaa.com/2017/10/new-ve…
Even if a driver uses voice commands, systems often require looking at a car's touchscreen (and not the road) to verify accuracy. That’s inherently risky. Image
Read 14 tweets
David Zipper Profile picture
5 Jun
A provocative question in this book by @STS_News: Why doesn't the USA regulate car safety like emissions?

"How would automakers transform their products if we mandated that they reduce the number of automotive fatalities in new cars by, say, 40% within 10 years?"

A thread 🧵:
For a century, automobile safety has largely focused on 1) driver education and 2) voluntary agreements by automakers to build safer cars.

Both those approaches are flawed.
Here's future Sen. Daniel P. Moynihan critiquing safety education in 1959:

It "shifts public attention from factors like auto design, which we can reasonably hope to control, to factors such as the temperament and behavior of 80M drivers, who [will ignore] a bunch of slogans."
Read 8 tweets

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