“For decades, New York has built a for-hire vehicle system grounded in safety and accountability. Licensed drivers. Regulated vehicles. Clear rules. Clear responsibility when something goes wrong. More than 140,000 New Yorkers make their living as Uber or Lyft drivers, including more than 80,000 in New York City alone. The vast majority are immigrants. They are parents raising families, caregivers supporting relatives, and small business operators trying to stay afloat in an expensive city. Their earnings support a broad ecosystem of local businesses, including mechanics, gas stations, car washes, insurance brokers, and restaurants. This is not a niche workforce. It is a pillar of New York’s economy.
“Waymo and other autonomous vehicle companies want New York to dismantle this system. They promise that driverless cars will be safer, cheaper and more efficient. But their record elsewhere tells a different story. Across the country, autonomous vehicles have killed and injured pedestrians and cyclists, stalled in the middle of streets, blocked emergency responders, and driven into active police scenes. During a recent power outage in San Francisco, dozens of Waymo robotaxis froze at once, clogging roads at the moment the city needed mobility most.
“Allowing driverless for-hire vehicles through budget language or quiet statutory changes would lock New York into a risky experiment with no easy way back. New Yorkers deserve a full and transparent debate about whether this technology belongs on our streets. New York is not anti-innovation. But we are pro-safety, pro-affordability and pro-workers.”
– Brendan Sexton, president, Independent Drivers Guild
Source: amNY
