Continuing their fight against Uber, Lyft and other ride hailing apps, the Upstate Transportation Association sent a letter to Governor Cuomo, state Senate president John Flanagan and state Assembly speaker Carl Heastie asking them to ban self-driving cars in New York State for at least 50 years.
UTA head John Tomassi sent the letter this morning, arguing that the need for a self-driving car ban exists because in light of the tests that Uber is running with them in other cities, the ban "is the only way to guarantee that any upstate jobs created by Uber are not immediately lost when the company shifts to a predominantly or entirely driverless fleet."
UTA Letter Uber Driverless Cars by johnd7463 on Scribd
The Upstate Transportation Association formed in the summer of 2016, as a conglomeration of taxi companies in Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany, Ithaca and Binghamton, with the goal of fighting Uber and Lyft's expansion Upstate. Legislation to legalize the services upstate failed to pass in the previous legislative session, but advocates for ride hailing apps are expected to continue to push for them in the new session.
Of course, even with Uber's ongoing push to test self-driving cars in places like San Francisco, Arizona and Pittsburgh, the biggest hurdle to self-driving cars debuting anywhere in New York State is the fact that they're currently illegal. Even a City Council hearing on the future of self-driving cars that was held last year was somewhat moot, given that there's still a law on the books requiring drivers to keep one hand on the wheel. That law hasn't been overturned yet, although the state Senate passed a bill overturning it that wasn't signed by the governor.
Uber spokesperson Alix Anfang called the letter a self-serving move by the UTA to gum up the works. "Another day, another attempt by taxi special interests to throw spaghetti at the wall to protect their bottom line."
