Labor unions rallied this week at the State House against legislation that would usher driverless cars into Massachusetts as industry voices touted the vehicles’ safety and efficiency just hours later.
About 70,000 app-based drivers and tens of thousands of Teamsters truck, transport, and delivery drivers would be displaced from their jobs if autonomous vehicles without human operators take to the roads in Massachusetts, according to Greater Boston Labor Council AFL-CIO President Darlene Lombos.
“First of all, the tech is not there. We’ve seen so many issues in other states and cities that they’re already operating in,” Lombos said in an interview. “Number two, there has been no impact study done on any kind of impacts on environment, workers, community, the safety issues around our roads — there has been no study around that, even though they say they’ve been testing, there’s been no public process around having driverless cars here.”
Beacon Hill is pondering the future of driverless cars. Legislation supported by the industry and opposed by unions would establish a “regulatory framework” for autonomous vehicles to be deployed and create an autonomous vehicle network in Massachusetts.
Filed by Representatives Daniel Cahill and Natalie Blais and Senator William Driscoll, the bills would enable the state to create and issue licenses for operating fully autonomous vehicles.
The legislation would prevent municipalities from prohibiting autonomous vehicles “to prevent a patchwork approach from emerging,” according to a Senate bill summary.
“Today, 25 states have enacted bills similar to House Bill 3634, which is necessary before companies like Waymo can operate in any state,” said Matt Walsh, state policy director for the driverless car company Waymo, said at a Transportation Committee hearing Tuesday. “Without this regulatory framework in place, Massachusetts will continue to lose out on the life-saving, economic benefits autonomous vehicles are already providing across the country.”
Walsh said Waymo frequently brings its vehicles to new cities for testing and has driven its vehicles manually in Boston for the last several weeks. Waymo is owned by Alphabet, the parent company of Google.
A coalition of drivers and union members are making the case for the value of human drivers, who they say can appropriately respond to emergencies and other situations in ways driverless vehicles cannot.
Chiem Klot, an Uber driver of nine years, said he once drove a bleeding passenger with a metal object impaled into his neck to the emergency room. He’s also gotten women in labor to the hospital on time.
“As an Uber driver,” said Klot, “we don’t just bring someone from point A to point B. We deal with responsibility, and we react to situations like this that Waymo can’t do at all.”
Watertown Representative Steve Owens, who spoke at the union rally Tuesday and sits on the Joint Committee on Transportation, is sponsoring legislation that is supported by unions and would require a human operator to be present in autonomous vehicles transporting commerce or passengers in Massachusetts.
“This isn’t just about jobs, either. You cannot teach empathy or instinct to an autonomous vehicle,” Teamsters Local 25 Secretary-Treasurer Steve South said. “So much about being safe on the roads is about being able to make split-second decisions using common sense — something driverless cars and trucks are nowhere close to mastering.”
Supporters of driverless vehicles said the vehicles are reducing the frequency and severity of collisions. Waymo has lowered airbag deployment crashes by 79 percent and lowered serious injury-causing crashes by 88 percent compared to humans driving the same distance, according to Waymo’s Walsh.
Walsh added that Waymo’s automated driving system, which drives more than 1 million miles on a weekly basis, is boosting efficiency.
A panel of pedestrian, bicycle, and environmental experts on Tuesday argued the state’s climate and infrastructure plans do not account for the impact of that mileage and that the vehicles’ software bias could endanger some pedestrians. Driverless ride-share services would also increase traffic congestion, human drivers claim.
Autonomous vehicles also would not be subject to the extensive data reporting requirements or fees that apply to transportation network companies like Uber and Lyft, according to Pete Wilson, policy director for Transportation for Massachusetts.
Walsh said Waymo would pay the same fees as Uber and Lyft if it were registered as a transportation network in Massachusetts.