Economist slams NHTSA rule forcing Waymo cars to keep steering wheels as pure safety theatre
paulnovosad · x · 2026-09-08
Economist Paul Novosad criticizes NHTSA's requirement that Waymo robotaxis keep steering wheels. He argues the barely reachable wheel could never prevent an accident, calling it pure safety theatre from regulators a generation behind the times — not a safety-vs-efficiency tradeoff, but a rule everyone knows is stupid yet institutions are too weak to remove.
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