Clara McMichael, ABC News transportation reporter Interview

Clara McMichael talks with Mendte in the Morning about the new Uber feature that offers driverless cars to its customers.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let me ask you a question. Do you use Uber?
I think we all have at one point or another, right,
everybody uses Uber? So if the car drove up and
there was no driver, would you get in? It's a
big question people are going to have to start asking. Uh.
Clara McMichael, who is the ABC News transportation reporter in

(00:21):
New York, has more on the driverless cars with Uber.
So Clara, let me ask you. Starting off, have you
driven in a driverless car?

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Hey, good morning Larry. Maybe I personally, I personally have not,
but I would And I will tell you this. I
will disclose that I probably would trust a Row taxi
more than I would trust my own driving.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
Really, I don't want to get in a car with
you that maybe we should, Maybe we should get more
into that. Maybe what what? Why wouldn't you trust yourself?
What happened exactly? Hey?

Speaker 2 (01:03):
You know, I'm I live here in New York. I'm
not driving every day. As we know, New York drivers
are kind of crazy, so you know, I'm not the
most confident behind the wheel. But hey, let me get
to the point here.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
Okay, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
The bays this morning is that Uber's launching robotaxis in
Dallas not here quite yet, And how it works there
is that if you go to request a regular Uber
x or Uber Comfort, you might get match with one.
And Uber says this comes at no additional costs and
you won't be prompted to tip. So that's nice of them.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Would you like a driver, I'm not tipping my car.
I will tell you this that I get Dallas and
I get some other cities. New York is unique. I
would think that people that have to be the most
concerned by the driverless cars are the people on e
bikes because I don't know if the driverless car is

(02:03):
going to see them coming. They you have to have
a driver to see out of the side that they're
going to drive in front of your car. And it happens,
they go the wrong way, they go through red lights,
nobody enforces it. I think that's the biggest problem on
the streets of New York is there is there a
way they're going to be able to deal with that.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
Well, so Waimo, which is an autonomous vehicle company, they've
been testing in New York already, So New York may be,
you know, around the corner as far as this rollout goes,
But yeah, I mean New York is very specific. There
are so many you know dangers here, people you know,
stopping in the lane, e bikes, pedestrians, you know, crossing

(02:42):
the street, that the whatever, they want you right, right,
But you know, they say that there's so much technology
on these vehicles to prevent accidents from happening. This one
in Dallas, it's a Hyundai Ionics five. It has thirteen cameras,
five light ars for radars on board, and it also
uses AI to kind of predict people's actions, so it's

(03:05):
learning from that and they say that that makes it safe.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
So you're saying it might be better than even having
a driver, and which gets us back to you saying
that you'd rather get in a car with a driver
that has no driver than drive yourself.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
Right. It takes us back to my personal issues. You know,
there are definitely incidents that happen with robotaxis, and you know,
in a very few number of cases they have been
involved in fatalities, not necessarily the cause, but involved, and
so not to minimize that, but it's such a small
number compared to the number of road fatalities that occur

(03:43):
every year with regular drivers and regular crashes and just
by the numbers here. For the first half of this year,
over seventeen thousand people died on the road. And with robotaxis,
of course the scale is much smaller. But you aren't
seeing that huge number right.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
Well, it's coming, so we've been warned. Thanks a lot,
Clara McMichael, who you do not want to get in
a car with ABC News transportation reporter. Thanks so much,
clarare good talking to you.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
Thank you