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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast am on

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Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and welcome back to Coast to Coast. Matthew Crawford

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Speaker 1: is a mechanic author of Shop Class at south Craft.

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Speaker 1: He is also author of the latest book called Why

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Speaker 1: We Drive, which is an incredible book. The latest book,

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Speaker 1: of course, is about, you know, his philosophy of the

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Speaker 1: open road. He majored in physics at UC Santa Barbara

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Speaker 1: earned a PhD in political philosophy from the University of Chicago.

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Speaker 1: And Matthew, I gotta believe you love driving cars, don't you.

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Speaker 1: I do. Thanks for having me on the show. George, Yeah, cars, motorcycles, skateboards,

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Speaker 1: name what was the first car you ever owned? First

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Speaker 1: car I had was a nineteen sixty three Beatle and

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Speaker 1: I bought it before I even had a driver's license.

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Speaker 1: I was already working at a Porsche shop, just doing

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Speaker 1: kind of menial labor, and a VW Bug was about

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Speaker 1: close as I was going to get to a Porsche.

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Speaker 1: I got a Mine was a nineteen sixty eight Ford

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Speaker 1: Mustang brand new. Dad worked at Ford Motor Company in Dearborn,

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Speaker 1: and he got a substantial discount, and he said this

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Speaker 1: is going to be for your high school graduation present,

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Speaker 1: and he buys me this beautiful blue Mustang, which I

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Speaker 1: wish I still kept. Nice. Those were fun times. Tell

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Speaker 1: me about your work and what you've been doing. Well,

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Speaker 1: I've just written this book Why We Drive, and it's

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Speaker 1: a number of things. I guess I'm just very intrigued

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Speaker 1: by driving. I think it's an interesting activity that calls

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Speaker 1: on a lot of human capacities that we don't always

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Speaker 1: think about. It just becomes kind of automatic. But I

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Speaker 1: guess what prompted the inquiry partly was this big push

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Speaker 1: for driverless car. Oh boy, I know, well you just

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Speaker 1: heard that study I just had that these dry less

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Speaker 1: cars aren't all that they're because you made up to be. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's been a lot of hype surrounding this, and one

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Speaker 1: thing that has become clear is that the push for

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Speaker 1: driverless cars is not a response to consumer demand. It's

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Speaker 1: not like people are clamoring for this. It's more of

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Speaker 1: a top down project. So like when Pew has asked

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Speaker 1: done surveys asking people about their attitudes, they still don't

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Speaker 1: trust the technology. Also, when you ask people if they

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Speaker 1: like to drive or thinks a chore about a third

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Speaker 1: think it's a chore, and about two thirds seem to

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Speaker 1: enjoy it. Next hour, we're gonna put up our phone lines, Matthew,

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Speaker 1: and one of the groups I'm going to ask to

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Speaker 1: call you are truck drivers, because there's also that big

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Speaker 1: movement for driverless trucks. And is this an effort to

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Speaker 1: save money? I mean, why would they even think about

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Speaker 1: driverless vehicles? What's the benefit? Well, you mentioned trucks there,

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Speaker 1: it seems like, I mean, obviously the point is to

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Speaker 1: get rid of truck drivers. Yeah, even but more broadly,

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Speaker 1: there's this premise that human beings are terrible drivers. That's

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Speaker 1: the sort of that's what you hear, and you know,

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Speaker 1: so it's a kind of technocratic project to idiot proof everything,

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Speaker 1: and they proceed by treating us like idiots. And there's

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Speaker 1: a kind of vicious circle here where the more you

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Speaker 1: automate things, the more our skills atrophy for lack of youth,

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Speaker 1: which leads to demands for further automation. So, you know,

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Speaker 1: at that endpoint of that trajectory, we're just kind of

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Speaker 1: passive and dependent creatures. Somewhere in the great unknown, somebody

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Speaker 1: came up with the initial idea for driverless vehicles. Who

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Speaker 1: might that have been? Do we know? Oh boy? I

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Speaker 1: mean you can go all the way back to like

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Speaker 1: the Jetsons cartoon, right, yeah, Well, something we've been imagining

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Speaker 1: forever and somehow we identify it with the future. What

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Speaker 1: happened to jet packs? Though I could, personally I would

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Speaker 1: those would have been fun. Yeah, I'd end up probably

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Speaker 1: burning my heinie with one of those things, But it

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Speaker 1: would be great to be able to just go show

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Speaker 1: and you're where are you going to get? But think

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Speaker 1: about if you ever got into an accident with somebody

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Speaker 1: else up there, You're gone unless you had a parachute. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I don't think we're ready for jetpacks. Were we've become

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Speaker 1: too dumb? But I mean, I mean, is there an egon, Well,

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Speaker 1: let's push the truck drivers aside for a moment. Is

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Speaker 1: there an economic benefit to the passenger driverless cars? Well,

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Speaker 1: I mean, think about it. These cars are going to

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Speaker 1: be very expensive. Part of those costs will be a

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Speaker 1: public cost because what we're talking about is really redoing

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Speaker 1: the whole road infrastructure to accommodate these things. Won't they

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Speaker 1: need some kind of electric whole system in the pavement, Well,

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Speaker 1: there are to be a bunch of sensors in the pavement,

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Speaker 1: you know that they'll pick up as they go along.

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Speaker 1: And the thing is that all the sort of promised

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Speaker 1: gains in traffic flow, which is you know, that's a

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Speaker 1: real possibility. To realize those gains, you have to have

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Speaker 1: essentially everybody in a driverless car, because they have to

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Speaker 1: coordinate with one another, and you can't have you know,

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Speaker 1: people like you and me dashing in between them and

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Speaker 1: their Mustang and messing up the whole thing. So it

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Speaker 1: kind of pushes toward all or nothing. And there's this

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Speaker 1: in one incident where a Google car came up to

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Speaker 1: an intersection and it came to a stop. It was

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Speaker 1: a four way stop, and so it was waiting for

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Speaker 1: the other cars to come to a complete stop before

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Speaker 1: going through, because you know, it's a rule follower, it's

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Speaker 1: a robot. But of course that's not what people do.

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Speaker 1: They don't come to a complete stop. So the car

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Speaker 1: got paralyzed. It just sort of froze and melted down there.

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Speaker 1: And the head Google guy in charge, he said that

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Speaker 1: what he had learned from this is that human beings

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Speaker 1: need to be less idiotic. Oh, by which he meant

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Speaker 1: they need to act more like robots. And that's I

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Speaker 1: think that's a conclusion that comes very easily if you

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Speaker 1: regard the mind as basically an inferior version of the computer.

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Speaker 1: What about the poor woman back in March of twenty eighteen,

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Speaker 1: the forty nine year old lady from Arizona who gets

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Speaker 1: killed by a self driving uber car because it wasn't

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Speaker 1: able to recognize that the pedestrian had a jaywalk and

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Speaker 1: was you know, jaywalking, and you know, hit the lady

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Speaker 1: and killed her. Yeah, there's been a few of those incidents.

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Speaker 1: But think about how much pressure there is to be

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Speaker 1: first to market with this stuff, because whoever gets there

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Speaker 1: first is going to be basically a monopoly because it's

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Speaker 1: one of these sort of platform type Is it going

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Speaker 1: to happen, Matthew, I think it's way off, and I

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Speaker 1: think there's enough kind of skepticism building now. I think

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Speaker 1: some of the investors are starting to pull out and

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Speaker 1: we're realizing just how expensive and kind of unnecessary this is,

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Speaker 1: because in fact, you know, human beings are pretty good

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Speaker 1: at doing this. We've figured it out, and I've happened

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Speaker 1: to like getting into a car when I drive, taking

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Speaker 1: some time to think about my day's events, what I'm

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Speaker 1: going to do while I'm paying attention to traffic and

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Speaker 1: knock on wood, things have been safe. But I'd like driving.

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Speaker 1: I think it's relaxing, don't you. Yeah, and think, I mean,

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Speaker 1: think about a road trip where you may not even

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Speaker 1: have a definite destination in mind, but there's just kind

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Speaker 1: of throwing yourself out into the world. You're roaming, And

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Speaker 1: I find roaming like the best kind of antidote to

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Speaker 1: the confinement of work and family. And you know, there's

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Speaker 1: something about getting out on the road that it just

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Speaker 1: kind of rejuvenates you. Technically, Matthew, how do driverless vehicles work?

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Speaker 1: You get in it, You get in it. What happens? Well,

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Speaker 1: they've got they're bristling with sensors like a dozen cameras, lightar,

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Speaker 1: which is a form of radar, basically sound sensors. And

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Speaker 1: then each one of these has to be basically a

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Speaker 1: rolling supercomputer to process all this data in real time.

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Speaker 1: And we're talking just gobs and gobs of data. Are

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Speaker 1: they electric or gasoline? Oh? Well, they could be either.

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Speaker 1: You know. The the type of power plant they have

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Speaker 1: is sort of irrelevant to the driver list Okay, yeah,

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Speaker 1: who fills up the tank if it's got gasoline needs? Well,

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Speaker 1: the driver lists the driver. I mean, what happens we're

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Speaker 1: gonna have We're gonna have driverless gasoline stations one day too. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: A se questions like that. Um, I don't think it's

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Speaker 1: all been worked out. And how does the car start?

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Speaker 1: I mean our car? Now you've got a key or

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Speaker 1: a push button, you start your car and off you go.

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Speaker 1: I mean, how's how's the car gonna start? Yeah? Maybe

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Speaker 1: it'll be like a computer where you push the start

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Speaker 1: button both to stop it and to start it. And

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Speaker 1: who's going to start it? Yeah? Well I don't know.

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Speaker 1: Presumably the operator would have some control. What operator? I mean,

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Speaker 1: what if you have an Uber out there? Where's where's

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Speaker 1: it coming from? Who's going to start it up? Who's

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Speaker 1: going to stop it? Yeah? Well the Yeah, you're asking

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Speaker 1: the right questions. And you mentioned Uber. Um so so

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Speaker 1: one effect of Uber and the other ride hailing apps

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Speaker 1: has been a big increase in congestion because think about it,

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Speaker 1: you you you know, a car shows up within a

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Speaker 1: few minutes, almost like magic, and the only way they're

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Speaker 1: able to do that is to flood the streets with

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Speaker 1: um with cars. And in New York City from twenty

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Speaker 1: thirteen to seventeen, when the city was sort of getting uberized,

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Speaker 1: the number of four higher vehicles increased by fifty nine

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Speaker 1: percent and the number of unoccupied vehicles went up by

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Speaker 1: eighty one percent. Geez. So, so the you know, like

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Speaker 1: the New York City Transportation Department is is very upset

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Speaker 1: about this, and for reason. And then meanwhile the subway

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Speaker 1: is crumbling right for lack of investment. Has Uber killed

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Speaker 1: the cab business? I don't know what the numbers are,

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Speaker 1: but I'm just really tried. Yeah, and unless this, you know,

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Speaker 1: the various jurisdictions step up and try to offer some

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Speaker 1: kind of protection, yeah, and more sort of even competitive

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Speaker 1: playing field. And the thing about it is so ubers

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Speaker 1: are super cheap, right, They are often about half the

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Speaker 1: price of a cat, Yes, exactly. So you ask, how

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Speaker 1: is that possible? Well, a transportation consultant did a study

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Speaker 1: of Uber's economics and discovered that the only reason they

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Speaker 1: can charge such low fares is because of massive subsidies

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Speaker 1: by the early investors. So, in the words, the investors

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Speaker 1: are are paying your fare, or about half of it

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Speaker 1: and there's this it's not like Uber has discovered efficiencies

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Speaker 1: that previously eluded the taxi industry. So so later investors,

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Speaker 1: now you know, the company sort of grew exponentially, and

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Speaker 1: that attracts further investment, and so basically at that point

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Speaker 1: it becomes like a Ponzi scheme with later investors taking

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Speaker 1: out the ones that came in. Yeah, yeah, I don't know, man,

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Speaker 1: that's something else. And then you know, lift, but who

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Speaker 1: is asleep at the cab companies who should have come

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Speaker 1: up with an Uber type app for yellow cab and

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Speaker 1: places like that. Yeah, no, no, you're right, because it's

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Speaker 1: not it's not like a complicated technology. It isn't really

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Speaker 1: a technology that's doing this. It's more a form of

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Speaker 1: kind of labor arbitrage where you're taking these sort of

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Speaker 1: gig economy drivers who aren't really invested in the job. Furthermore,

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Speaker 1: there usually leasing their cars and they get tied into

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Speaker 1: these often pretty abusive lease agreements that it's very hard

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Speaker 1: to get out of. And so now you're basically like

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Speaker 1: a sharecropper working for Uber. And you know, they're often immigrants,

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Speaker 1: they're not very savvy financially, so they don't quite know

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Speaker 1: what they're getting into, right, but they need a job,

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Speaker 1: they need quick money, and it's a quick way to

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Speaker 1: do it because I'm told by some of the drivers

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Speaker 1: that Uber or Lyft just pops the money in their

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Speaker 1: bank account. That's there. Yeah, yep. Now in your book

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Speaker 1: you talk about you've traveled around to different scenes and

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Speaker 1: places like that. Well, what if you find in the

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Speaker 1: book why we drive? What was the most exciting aspect

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Speaker 1: of it for Yeah, So I went to different motorsports scenes.

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Speaker 1: It's sort of grassroots motorsports, small stuff and different kind

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Speaker 1: of automotive subculture. And one thing that was very attractive

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Speaker 1: is that um, like in this desert race they do

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Speaker 1: in Nevada, it's been going on for generations. It's the

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Speaker 1: same families come back and they manned these race checkpoints,

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Speaker 1: like the same checkpoints. Um. You know, they'll be fathers

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Speaker 1: and daughters, you know, sort of passing this on. And

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Speaker 1: they have a very keen sense of being responsible not

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Speaker 1: just for the desert, but for you know the relationship

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Speaker 1: with the townspeople and the ranchers. And it's this activity

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Speaker 1: they love and it's and it's this picture of um

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Speaker 1: of self government really because there's no bureaucracy, there's no

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Speaker 1: referee to appeal to, and you know, something goes wrong,

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Speaker 1: it's just people kind of working things out. And that

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Speaker 1: was I thought that was a nice kind of glimpse

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Speaker 1: into um, what you might call like the sort of

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Speaker 1: the nursery of the democratic character when people just learn

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Speaker 1: to cooperate and then work it out. Matthew, you've got

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Speaker 1: an issue with speed limits and red light cameras. I

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Speaker 1: don't like red light cameras, but speed limits don't bother me.

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Speaker 1: Why does it bother you? Well, not speed limits in general,

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Speaker 1: But the thing is they're often set below the sort

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Speaker 1: of reasonable speed that is dictated by the features of

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Speaker 1: the road. In fact, the former head of the National

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Speaker 1: Transportation and Safety Administration, after he quit that job, he

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Speaker 1: published a paper in which he said that most speed

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Speaker 1: limits in America are set about fifteen miles an hour

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Speaker 1: too slow. And it's interesting because the speed that people

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Speaker 1: actually drive is not very sensitive to the speed limit.

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Speaker 1: We tend to take our cues from, for example, the

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Speaker 1: width of the lanes, and there's actually a standard for

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Speaker 1: you know, if it's a fifty five mile an hour

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Speaker 1: speed limit, you have a certain lane width, and you know,

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Speaker 1: if it's narrower, you got to go slower because it's

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Speaker 1: harder to stay near the center of the lane. Well,

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Speaker 1: to take an example, the Washington George Washington Parkway in DC.

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Speaker 1: The lanes are built to the fifty five mile an

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Speaker 1: hour standard, but the speed limit is forty five, so

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Speaker 1: people are driving, you know, faster, and the speed limit

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Speaker 1: is deliberately set in order to sort of maximize infractions.

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Speaker 1: And as a notorious speed trap. We've got a situation

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Speaker 1: that because of COVID nineteen, so many people are outside

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Speaker 1: of their houses jogging and walking their dogs and stuff

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Speaker 1: because they're tired of being cooped up. But at a

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Speaker 1: certain time, going west in my neighborhood, the sun is

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Speaker 1: just notorious at four or five o'clock. And if you've

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Speaker 1: got hundreds of people out jogging and walking stuff, a

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Speaker 1: lot of them, Matthew, don't really pay attention to you,

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Speaker 1: and so they'll just walk right across the street. And

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Speaker 1: I got to tell you, with the sun hitting you

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Speaker 1: right in the eyes and all these people out there,

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Speaker 1: you've got to be really careful because you can't see

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Speaker 1: these people, not even it's and it's so easy to

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Speaker 1: hit somebody. Yeah, there's really no substitute for paying attention,

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Speaker 1: and that's kind of that's a big crisis, right, distracted

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Speaker 1: driving because once the smartphone came along, oh my god, no,

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Speaker 1: it's like this dopamine candy coming at you, and the

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Speaker 1: windshield just starts to seem like one more screen, but

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Speaker 1: it can't compete with the stuffness on your phone. So

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Speaker 1: that's a real problem. Listen to more Coast to Coast

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Speaker 1: AM every weeknight at one am Eastern, and go to

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Speaker 1: Coast to Coast am dot com for more