Tuesday’s Headlines: Way Mo’ Human Edition

Waymo is constantly claiming that its autonomously driven taxis are safer than human drivers — and the company is certainly right … at least when one compares an AV Waymo taxi to the company’s own drivers.

Now, you know us: We like to look under the hood a bit, so we have been tracking five Waymo cars since the company started testing autonomous taxis here in New York in 2025. The good news? When the Waymo is driving itself, it doesn’t drive recklessly. But on April 1, when the state and city testing permits expired, humans took over the driving duties — and the results have been nothing short of disastrous.

Check out the driving records on the cars we’ve been tracking (all have Arizona plates, except where noted):

• C9A28W: three camera-issued speeding tickets since May 3.
• DNA60T: two camera-issued speeding tickets since April 10.
• CAA89W: one camera-issued speeding ticket on July 2.
• KEA7FY: seven camera-issued speeding tickets since June 3 — plus a bus lane violation.
• 02880Z3 (California): 11 camera-issued speeding tickets (and a bus lane ticket) since June 13.

Reminder: All of these tickets occurred when humans were driving the cars. So when we reached out to Waymo, the company was apologetic and angry at the drivers, which it said were “hired by our partners.”

“Safety is core to our mission and we take these violations seriously,” company spokesman Ethan Teicher said. “We will conduct a thorough review with our driving operations partner to understand why these violations occurred, and to ensure appropriate action is taken.” He added that Waymo will demand that its driving partners look into the “root cause” of these tickets. (Hint: driving too fast and endangering us — like all human drivers do.)

Meanwhile in other autonomous vehicle news, our friends at Open Plans as well as Sam Schwartz’s institute at Roosevelt House put out a report that casts doubt on both Waymo’s safety record and its impact on congestion.

Gothamist and amNY focused on the safety part of the report, but we at Streetsblog took a slightly different approach, focusing on the millions more vehicle miles traveled that robotaxis will unleash.

In other news:

• The top non-Waymo story was an egregious Daily News editorial on Monday that claimed, “We can’t count how many people have been killed in Central Park collisions with bicycles and e-bike and scooters, but those conveyances, which go a lot faster than a horse carriage, aren’t facing a sloppily crafted ban.” That didn’t sound right because clearly the number could be counted, no matter how high it supposedly is. So I reached out to the Department of Transportation and got the truth: “Looking back at the last five years, there has been one fatality in Central Park involving e-bikes, traditional bikes, or stand-up scooters: a rider of a Class-3 e-bike was killed in a crash with a pedestrian in 2025,” said agency spokesman Vin Barone. (The NYPD later said that there has only been one such fatality in Central Park in six years.) So now we know: The Daily News editorial board can’t even count to one!
• There’s a new YIMBY town: Jersey City! (Gothamist)
• Hey, Toronto Star, you stole our World Cup angle!
• Meet the Black woman behind Mayor Mamdani’s fast buses plan. (The Grio)
• I’m not sure I want a camera and TV screen on my bike, but check out the new VW helmet. (Car Scoops)
• Why do we let drunk drivers continue to drive? (NY Post, Part 1, NY Post, Part 2)
• It looks like we have a new Economic Development Corporation CEO. (NY Times)
• Massive flooding is expected today. (NYDN)