New York Just Killed Its Robotaxi Plan. The Real Problem Isn't the Technology

Re:New York Just Killed Its Robotaxi Plan. The Real Problem ... by catsquirrel28 on Sunday February 22, 2026 @09:50AM (#47111439)

> Imagine the conversation New York legislators could have had if every robotaxi ride generated a cryptographically signed, tamper-evident record of the vehicle's behavior — independently verifiable by any regulator, auditor, or safety agency.

This is putting the cart before the horse. The problem with autonomous vehicles is that there's no standardized third party test suite to validate and certify ahead of time and periodically that the vehicles are capable of behaving correctly in all road conditions even with their sensors degraded as will happen over time.

This kind of validation should be done by the state or a neutral third party like UL in the US before a single vehicle is allowed on public roads.

Without it they're just unleashing multi-ton weapons on the streets with no guarantee they'll perform adequately. The problems with this were evident in SF when the blackout happened and the Waymos clogged up the roadways. If that happens during a real emergency and blocks the roadways it could result in thousands of deaths.

Autonomous vehicles are a bad idea anyway for the reasons in this video[1].

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=040ejWnFkj0

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Re:New York Just Killed Its Robotaxi Plan. The Real Problem ... by chris_money202 on Sunday February 22, 2026 @10:12AM (#47111628)

The cart is before the horse in some instances, but each state and each city will approach risk a little differently. Cities like SF and Austin are willing to take bigger risk without data, other states and cities will want the data from the risk taking cities to see.

I agree though, these products should be certified ahead of time by industry standards. That is what PhyComp will help accomplish.

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Re:New York Just Killed Its Robotaxi Plan. The Real Problem ... by amelius on Sunday February 22, 2026 @10:39AM (#47111850)

Thanks, that's a good video.

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Re:New York Just Killed Its Robotaxi Plan. The Real Problem ... by tim333 on Monday February 23, 2026 @07:00AM (#47121193)

I thought it was so so. The first ten minutes are saying like maybe these self driving cars are dangerous, ignoring that with Waymo the accident rates are about 1/3 that of human driven. Most of the rest is saying letting traffic dominate cities is bad but that's not a self driving thing. They may work quite well with public transport - it's easier to ban most cars and say take the train if there are cheap 24 hour robotaxis from the station.

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