In Transit: Are self-driving vehicle dangers being taken seriously?

In the 1983 Stephen King novel and film "Christine," a Plymouth Fury with an evil mind of its own commits a series of murders, running down high school bullies and hapless others while there is no one behind the wheel.

Four decades on, with all the recent talk of an artificial intelligence apocalypse, the idea of a possessed car wreaking havoc on its own almost seems quaint.

A new novel, "Autokill," co-authored by a former New York City traffic commissioner and a novelist, explores an updated (still fictional) scenario. The year is 2036, and American society is in upheaval over the widespread rollout of autonomous vehicles. Meanwhile, a group of disaffected people — some of whom lost their trucking jobs to automation — are hacking into robocars and controlling them to run people down in acts of terrorism.

Sam Schwartz, one of the co-authors, who also co-wrote a 2018 non-fiction book titled "No One at the Wheel: Driverless Cars and the Road of the Future," has been an outspoken skeptic of autonomous vehicle companies. The former traffic engineer, known as "Gridlock Sam" for popularizing the term for bottlenecks, argues that if robocars are rolled out without proper planning, they could worsen congestion, lead to widespread unemployment and hurt public transit — especially if the wealthiest find it easier and cheaper to simply hop in a robotaxi rather than take a train or bus.

The autonomous vehicle industry has long argued that its advantage is safety and that it can help reduce the almost 40,000 people killed on American roads each year. Waymo, the largest player in the business right now, with fleets in eight states but not New York, claims to have a better safety record than average humans — a finding that has been corroborated by some independent studies, including a recent one by Hunter College’s transportation research program, which Schwartz himself endowed.

Waymo has said its vehicles, which are controlled by onboard computers but also rely on "remote assistance" from humans (some of them based in the Philippines) during tricky situations, are protected from hacking by robust cybersecurity measures.

But Schwartz doesn't think the world is taking the possibility of terrorism using autonomous vehicles seriously enough.

"I'm not against autonomous vehicles," Schwartz said at an author talk in Manhattan last week, where he appeared along his co-author, Cary Pepper. "This will be the biggest industry the world has ever seen, but it has to be done right."

Check out our story about whether technology can save Long Islanders from our dangerous roads. What do you think about autonomous vehicles? Will they improve commutes and make Long Island roads safer? Or are there downsides? Reach us at transit@newsday.com. 

Transportation news

• Critics said a Trump administration social media post, showing a Transformer facing off with a trucker named "Mr. Singh," was meant to stir hostility toward the Sikh community.
• Peter Kalikow, who headed the MTA on Sept. 11, 2001, looks back on evacuating millions of New Yorkers, and putting the largest transit system in the U.S. back together again, following the terror attacks 25 years ago.
• A Phoenix-bound Delta flight was forced to make an emergency return to Kennedy Airport Thursday because of a possible loss of cabin pressure, federal officials said.
• Two people were killed on Long Island roads in separate crashes Monday.
• A Yaphank drag race Sunday that drew more than 100 onlookers ended with four arrests.
• A plan to add an elevator and ramps at the last inaccessible LIRR station in Nassau County is getting a $250,000 injection of federal funding.
• Suffolk political leaders are calling on the state to add a third lane to the Sunrise Highway east of Patchogue.

Travel watch

Bridge rehabilitation work will cause the overnight closure of the left lane of the Loop Parkway over Reynolds Channel in both directions starting tonight and last through the end of the year. The right lane of the southbound Meadowbrook over Fundy Channel will also be closed through November.

Buses will replace trains between the LIRR’s Huntington and Port Jefferson stations from 8:30 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. tomorrow for track maintenance work. Also, westbound Hempstead trains will skip Elmont-UBS Arena, Queens Village and Hollis stations from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. through Thursday of this week.

Did you know?

After serving 124 stations for more than 20 years, the opening of Elmont-UBS Arena in 2021 and of Grand Central Madison in 2023 brought the total number of LIRR stations to 126. But several dozen stations have been decommissioned over the LIRR’s 192 years of existence. In 1998 alone, the LIRR took 10 stations out of service: Fresh Pond, Glendale, Richmond Hill, Mill Neck, Penny Bridge, Haberman, Holtsville, Center Moriches, Quogue and Southampton Campus-LIU.

By Peter Gill

peter.gill@newsday.com