Upper East Side Lawmaker Warns Against Self-Driving Cars In NYC

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — An Upper East Side lawmaker has advised New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo against a state plan to allow self-driving car testing on New York City streets.

State Senator Liz Krueger told Cuomo that she and other city legislators have "serious concerns" about whether the vehicles are safe for densely-populated city streets, according to a letter acquired by Patch. Kreuger also advised that if testing should go forward all the data and reports from the tests should be made publicly available.

"When the legislation authorizing autonomous vehicle testing in New York passed with the [fiscal year] 2018 budget, I and many of my colleagues were concerned about the prospect of imperfect autonomous vehicles on public roads in New York State — especially given the serious collisions that have occurred in other states during similar testing," Krueger wrote in the letter sent to Cuomo.

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Krueger added that her concern grew when she discovered the testing would take place on the highly-traffic streets of Lower Manhattan instead of low-traffic streets elsewhere and that she was "further disturbed" when she found out the NYPD and city Department of Transportation were not consulted by the state, according to the letter.

The state senator's concerns echoed those voiced last week by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who said the plan to test self-driving cars in the city "makes no sense."

Cuomo announced last week that GM and its high-tech subsidiary, Cruise Automation, have applied to test autonomous cars in lower Manhattan starting in early 2018. Officials touted Manhattan's complex and unpredictable streets as a proving ground that could help advance self-driving technology.

The cars won't be unsupervised — an engineer will be behind the wheel for each test and a second person in the front passenger seat, the governor's office said. Cruise Automation has started mapping a "geofenced area" in lower Manhattan, a Cuomo spokeswoman said.

Testing the cars in New York will let Cruise "expose our software to unusual situations" in one of the nation's most densely populated areas, speeding up the process of "deploying self-driving cars at scale," company CEO Kyle Vogt said in a statement. It's not yet certain how many cars will be used in the test.

Read State Senator Krueger's full letter below:

Photo courtesy Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office