| RIPTIDE | ▼ MIAMI-DADE CRUISE CONTROL M MIAMI’S FIRST FLEET OF DRIVERLESS CARS HITS THE STREETS. BY JESS SWANSON iami drivers can speed, honk, and bla- tantly disregard turn signals. But if you glance at the car idling beside you at a red light and it looks like no one’s sitting behind the wheel, rest assured that Miami driv- ers have not yet mastered invisibil- ity, nor have you accidentally driven back to the future. According to Pittsburgh-based autonomous vehicle technology de- veloper, Argo AI, no sentient beings are required to man its fleet of driv- erless vehicles, which debuted this month on public roads in Miami — and it’s completely safe and legal. “Elevators used to be a novelty, but today we take them for granted,” Alex Roy, Argo AI’s director of special operations, points out. “The two most common misconceptions about driverless vehicles are that they will never work, or that they will work every- where overnight. The reality is, driverless ve- hicles are on the road in several cities right now, and that number will only grow.” While some companies have begun testing vehicles with safety co-drivers and engineers in the front seat, Argo AI says it’s the first to go fully driverless in the Magic City. It comes nearly four years since the company first de- ployed its vehicles across Miami to map the GET MORE NEWS & COMMENTARY AT MIAMINEWTIMES.COM/NEWS ▼ SOUTH MIAMI “CITY OF PEASANT LIVING” SOUTH MIAMI WELCOME SIGN ALTERED AFTER PANHANDLING ORDINANCE PASSES. BY JOSHUA CEBALLOS T he welcome sign at the entrance to the City of South Miami touts the Miami-Dade suburb as “The City of Pleasant Living.” But in a recent instance of either cosmic irony or cynical vandalism shared on social media by Is- landia Journal publisher Jason Katz, the letter L on the sign has gone missing, and the municipality’s motto now reads: “The City of Peasant Living.” According to Sally Philips, South Miami’s mayor, the unfortunate typo is believed to be an act of vandalism that the city is already working to correct. While Philips can acknowledge the vandals’ ingenuity, she doesn’t find the current phrase to be funny or accurate. “I don’t find it particularly humorous, but it was clever,” Philips tells New Times. “What a dif- ference that one letter makes.” Photo courtesy of Argo AI terrain and master what it calls “complex traffic scenarios,” including “pedestrians walking outside of designated walk areas,” “cyclists,” and “construction.” According to various studies, more than 90 percent of automobile accidents are caused in part by human error. That number may be higher in Miami, where drivers regu- larly rank among the worst in the nation. “I’m most excited for my 3-year-old, who just got her first bike,” says Roy, who lives in Brickell. “I want her to be safe riding in our neighborhood, and this technology will help make that happen.” Founded by former execs on the self-driving teams at Google and Uber, Argo AI aims to inte- grate its technology into different types of vehi- cles. Its test fleet in Miami is made up of Ford Escape hybrids. Though you can’t hail an Argo AI vehicle from an app on your phone just yet and the vehicles will only ply the roads by day, the fleet will slowly expand its operations. For now, it’s being used for pilot delivery and ride- share programs with Walmart and Lyft. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is tasked with setting motor- vehicle safety standards, but regulation — everything from licensing to traffic law enforcement to insurance and liability — is left to the states. Florida, with its lack of snow and influx of tourists and retirees, is an ideal spot to test and launch driverless car technology. It helps that Gov. Ron DeSantis signed CS/HB 311, a landmark bill that made it legal for autonomous vehicles to operate without a human driver on board, in 2019. The Society of Automotive Engineers ranks driving automation according to six lev- els from 0 (no automation) to 5 (full automa- tion). Argo AI spokesperson Jenny Grich tells Argo AI announced that it has begun driverless operations in Miami and Austin. New Times that Argo AI’s fleet oper- ates at a “Level 4” because it re- quires “no human interaction.” To put that into perspective, Tesla’s Full Self Driving Capability technology ranks at a Level 2 because “the car can do the steering and acceleration, but the driver must still be ready to take the wheel.” According to a press release from Argo AI, the company ap- proached TÜV SÜD, a world-lead- ing independent technical service provider, to conduct a third-party review of its automated technology. “The assessment is based on the four layered TÜV SÜD Automated Vehicle Framework, an established, federally recognized process in Germany, which is closely aligned with US DOT’s Guid- ance on AV Safety,” the release states. “The assessment confirmed that Argo meets, and in some cases exceeds, industry best practices and standards as outlined by Autonomous Vehicle Safety Consortium’s (AVSC) best practices and SAE International’s J3018 stan- dard for safe on-road testing.” According to OneZero technology reporter Dyllan Furness, who rode in an Argo AI vehi- cle down Miami’s Biscayne Boulevard in 2019, co-drivers found that “pedestrians in Miami pose for selfies with the car and even toss money at it as if it was a dancer” and when the vehicle stops for yellow lights, “other drivers are quick to lay on their horns.” So while you might be able to take the Mi- ami driver out of the car, you still can’t take the cars out of Miami — at least not yet. She has a point: The small suburb of about 12,000 residents isn’t exactly known for its “peasant living.” According to U.S. Census data, South Miami’s median household income of $66,769 is well above the county’s overall me- dian of $53,975, and its poverty rate of 12 per- cent is well below the county’s rate of 15 percent. That said, Philips theorizes that the vandal- ization might be linked to the city’s houseless population and a recent ordinance that criminal- izes panhandling. “Every city has homelessness and panhan- dling,” Philips notes. “Camping” on public property is already pro- hibited in South Miami. But on April 5, commis- sioners voted unanimously to pass a resolution restricting panhandling by prohibiting people from soliciting others for money, goods, or ser- vices while on public transportation, at a bus stop, at an ATM, or at someone’s car window when they’ve stopped at a traffic light. Anyone found guilty of panhandling can be fined up to $200 and face up to 30 days in jail, and if they’re found to be panhandling “aggressively,” the fine can reach as much as $500 and the jail time in- creases to a maximum of 60 days. “One way to stop panhandling is to stop giv- ing people money, but you can’t arrest people for giving money,” Philips says. “However, you can tell panhandlers to not be aggressive.” While Philips is proud “WHAT A DIFFERENCE THAT ONE LETTER MAKES.” of the commission’s work to address homelessness in the city, homeless ad- vocates like attorney Dante Trevisani, who grew up in South Miami, call these resolutions “anti-homeless laws,” and argue that they do little to prevent or solve the issues that cause houseless folks to ask for money or sleep on benches. “Like many cities, their people are complain- ing about homeless people being around busi- nesses in the downtown area,” says Trevisani, executive director of the Florida Justice Insti- tute, a nonprofit advocacy law firm. “The step that they take is criminalization, but that’s wrong on many fronts, and it’s ineffective. It doesn’t do anything to treat the root causes of homelessness.” Trevisani says similar anti-panhandling and anti-camping legislation has been overturned for violating First Amendment rights to free speech and Eighth Amendment rights against cruel and unusual punishment. South Miami’s ordinances, he adds, read almost identically to a similar ordi- nance passed by the City of Fort Lauderdale, which was struck down by a federal judge last June Fort Lauderdale was ordered to repeal the ordinance and pay damages to several houseless people who’d sued. It’s not just that these laws are unconstitu- tional, Trevisani explains. By criminalizing home- lessness, the laws further traumatize some of the city’s most disenfranchised residents. “People end up back on the street worse off because now they have a criminal record, fines, and fees to deal with, and the trauma of being in jail,” the attorney says. “For people with nowhere to live, this criminalizes their very existence.” [email protected] 33 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com | CONTENTS | LETTERS | NEWS | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | CAFE | MUSIC | miaminewtimes.com | CONTENTS | LETTERS | RIPTIDE | METRO | NIGHT+DAY | STAGE | ART | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | MIAMI NEW TIMES NEW TIMES MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2008 MAY 26 - JUNE 1, 2022
