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While some consider robotaxis just transportation, it seems in Seattle with its wokeness saturation in politics might believe it to be another extension of oppression. I’d love to be skeptical of the claims made by a local talk show host, but after seeing angry mobs purposely target autonomous cars repeatedly, we can’t help but think there’s something to this.
Tesla can now start offering robotaxi rides throughout Texas.
That local talk show host, Jason Rantz, wrote an interesting column about the issue for Seattle Red. In it, he shows how Seattle is arresting the entering of robotaxi services like Waymo or Uber out of an obsession with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies, or what some people call wokeness.
You can read Rantz’s detailed breakdown of how this is playing out in Seattle, but here’s the gist: The Seattle Department of Transportation established an Autonomous Vehicle Inclusive Planning Cohort to make sure any robotaxi services entering the city don’t violate the sacred doctrines of progressives.
If you’ve tried navigating such things, you know they’re always changing and literally impossible to navigate. That might be why people who try are so deeply unpleasant – it’s exhausting.
At the same time, with all the ridiculous red tape caused by the Planning Cohort’s demands for “equity” in robotaxi services, it could be that companies will just steer clear, at least for now. In effect, Seattle is chasing off the latest in transportation solutions by being high maintenance and demanding.
Among the long list of demands being made on robotaxi services is the general question of how they will compensate for historical injustices. And we’re not talking all historical injustices, but rather only those deemed relevant.
Silly me, I thought the main purpose of robotaxi services was to give people willing to pay for them an alternative way of getting around.
So rather than go into a situation where they surely won’t meet all the impossible and ever-shifting standards of modern progressives, I predict most if not all robotaxi services will stay out of Seattle for now. Sure, they might make token efforts to enter the city’s market to keep investors happy, but until the regulatory landscape there changes, true progress won’t take place.
Image via Stephen Leonardi/Pexels
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