4 June 20-26, 2024 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com New Times | music | cafe | culture | Night+Day | news | letters | coNteNts | MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2008 miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | ART | STAGE | NIGHT+DAY | METRO | RIPTIDE | LETTERS | CONTENTS | ▼ LEE COUNTY DEPUTY DAWG EX-U.S. REP. MADISON CAWTHORN NAMED HONORARY FLORIDA DEPUTY DESPITE I-75 CRASH. BY ALEX DELUCA I f you can’t rear-end ‘em, join ‘em. Or however the saying goes. Hot off an accident in which he slammed his car into the back of a state trooper’s vehicle, former U.S. House representative Madison Cawthorn was sworn in as an honorary sheriff’s deputy for the Lee County Sheriff’s Office earlier this month. The 28-year-old, whose tenure in Congress was spotted with scandals, announced the news in an Instagram post, which featured photos of him posing alongside members of the southwest Florida sheriff’s office. “Such an honor from [Lee County Sheriff] Carmine Marceno to be sworn in as an hon- orary deputy in the county that I live in,” Cawthorn captioned the photos. “Local, con- stitutional, law enforcement that answers to the people is what our founders intended.” Cawthorn made headlines in April after rear-ending a Florida Highway Patrol cruiser on I-75 in Collier County, which borders Lee County. Dashcam video obtained by New Times shows the moment he crashed into the patrol car at high speed, propelling it several feet forward and shattering its rear window into tiny pieces. The trooper emerged from the vehicle wincing and paced around on the side of the highway as Cawthorn sat with a blank stare near his car’s crushed front end. Following the violent collision, Cawthorn was cited for violating Florida’s so-called “Move Over” law, which requires drivers to yield to and slow down for police and emer- gency vehicles in the line of duty. The statute entails a non-criminal moving violation with a fine of up to $500. The former congressman, who served as a U.S. representative for North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District from 2021 to 2023, saw his tenure marred by repeated contro- versy, including allegations that he sexually harassed several of his schoolmates at Patrick Henry College, a Christian school in Virginia. The women said that during so-called “fun rides” in college (private joy rides in his car), Cawthorn made inappropriate comments and unwanted advances to them. Cawthorn said in a statement, “I have never done anything sexually inappropriate in my life.” Cawthorn was also accused of lying about his personal history and violating insider trading laws. The U.S. House Committee on Ethics fined him $14,000 for failing to file fi- nancial disclosures and violating conflict-of- interest rules by promoting the “Let’s Go Brandon” (LGB) meme coin while he had a fi- nancial interest in it. In March 2022, he was charged with driv- ing with a revoked license while two speed- ing tickets were pending. Cawthorn has been stopped twice for ille- gally bringing guns into U.S. airports. In Feb- ruary 2021, agents at Asheville Regional Airport found a gun in his carry-on bag. The following year, he was criminally charged with bringing a loaded firearm through a se- curity checkpoint at Charlotte Douglas Inter- national. (He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor over the latter incident.) He lost his re-election bid in the 2022 Re- publican primary. In 2014, when he was 18, Cawthorn was seriously injured in a car crash while on his way back to North Carolina from a spring break trip in Florida. He was a passenger in the car during the incident, which left him partially paralyzed. Carmine Marceno, who runs the sher- iff’s office that honored Cawthorn, portrays himself as a hard-nosed, “law and order” sheriff. He’s made headlines for publishing juvenile suspects’ names and showing their faces on camera for video segments. His so- cial media bits show him and his staff raid- ing alleged drug dealers’ houses, rounding up suspects, and doing comedy bits where they crack on arrestees they are bringing to the local jail, which the sheriff calls the “Marceno Motel.” | RIPTIDE | GET MORE NEWS & COMMENTARY AT MIAMINEWTIMES.COM/NEWS Screenshot via Florida Department of State Division of Elections Screenshot (left) Instagram/Florida Highway Patrol video screenshot ▼ MIAMI ROBOTOYOTAS AMAZON-OWNED COMPANY TO DEPLOY SELF-DRIVING CARS IN THE MAGIC CITY. BY NAOMI FEINSTEIN M iami traffic is already a nightmare laden with horrific drivers and poor in- frastructure to boot. Will adding fleets of self-driving vehicles alle- viate or exacerbate the traffic hellscape? The city may be on the cusp of finding out, as autonomous-vehicle companies expand their presence in South Florida. Amazon-owned Zoox announced on June 5 that it will soon deploy its retrofitted Toyota Highlander test fleet in Miami in hopes of launch- ing a robotaxi service. “We’re laying the foundations for our autonomous ride-hailing service in new cities across the U.S.,” Ron Thaniel, Zoox’s senior director of policy and regulatory affairs, said in a statement. “Austin and Miami offer key learning opportunities that will support the continued growth and refinement of our testing and service.” Zoox, which has already deployed testing ve- hicles in San Francisco, Foster City, Las Vegas, and Seattle in preparation for a commercial launch, said its test fleet equipped with safety drivers will operate in small areas near the busi- ness and entertainment districts of Miami. The company is not yet offering public rides in the Magic City. The announcement comes as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration investi- gates Zoox’s automated driving system over re- ports that two of the company’s Toyota Highlander SUVs braked suddenly and caused two rear-end collisions in separate incidents. “Transparency and collaboration with regula- tors is of the utmost importance, and we remain committed to working closely with NHTSA to answer their questions,” Zoox said in a media statement. According to Zoox, Miami presents opportunities to help the company refine its autonomous driving and study certain traffic infrastructure setups, including traffic lights suspended diagonally across intersections. Zoox says it will start within a focused testing area before “expanding methodologically as its artificial intelligence (AI) gets more familiar with the unique conditions” of the city. Other self-driving technology companies, such as Waymo (owned by Google’s parent Alphabet Inc.) and General Motors subsidiary Cruise, have tested their autonomous vehicles in Miami. Both companies are also facing federal probes over self-driving vehicle safety concerns after a string of crashes. Waymo, which already runs robotaxis in San Francisco and Phoenix, recently launched ser- vice in Los Angeles. Cruise has relaunched its self-driving taxi service after suspending operations late last year following a crash in which one of its vehicles dragged a San Francisco pedestrian along the street after the person was hit by another vehicle. The companies have maintained their robotaxis are less hazardous than human-driven cars. Zoox claims, “Our vehicles will be meaningfully safer than their human-driven counterparts.” [email protected] “OUR VEHICLES WILL BE MEANINGFULLY SAFER THAN THEIR HUMAN- DRIVEN COUNTERPARTS.”
