The debate over these autonomous vehicles often collapses into two camps: One side treats any regulation whatsoever as an obstacle to progress, the other argues we should pause on innovation until every future risk is resolved.
The truth is that cities don’t need to choose between innovation and safety. But if Chicago is going to welcome self-driving technology, the municipal government and the private sector must work in true partnership and stop treating public safety as something that gets bolted on only after a crisis or tragedy strikes.
While tech companies treat these examples as rare anomalies, in public safety, they are the use case. City officials are trained to operate as if nothing will go as it should. Any technology introduced into the public domain must be evaluated not just when everything goes right, but when everything goes wrong.
Days after being sworn in as FDNY Commissioner in 2022, fire marshals arrived at my office with grim news. E-bikes and the lithium-ion batteries that power them—devices that had only recently been introduced in New York City—suddenly became a top cause of fire deaths. While these batteries had been deemed safe in a lab setting, everything about city living made them more dangerous and more prone to fire, from potholes and salt-covered streets that damaged their protective casing to small apartments where bike storage is blocking the exit, to the growing demand for fast delivery that led to bad actors selling unsafe devices for a profit. It was so alarming that I went to Congress, and testified before the Consumer Product Safety Commission to warn others about what was happening in New York.
Some might see this as a reason to never try anything new, but I don’t agree. Building a city infrastructure that allows for innovation in mobility opens up all kinds of new avenues for manufacturing, job growth, and how services are delivered.
Before any municipality allows autonomous vehicles onto its streets, officials should require three things:
Success requires shared accountability
When autonomous systems fail, responsibility cannot be unclear or allow endless finger-pointing. Cities need enforceable agreements that specifically define who is responsible for risk mitigation, incident response, data sharing, and remediation. Innovation without accountability is not progress; it’s offloading risk onto cities and first responders while companies reap the rewards.
Collaboration must be ongoing, not a one-time approval
Autonomous vehicles, like many emerging technologies, have vast potential to reduce traffic fatalities, expand mobility, and improve quality of life. But they can also displace jobs, impede emergency services, and have unintended or unpredictable consequences. This balance can only be realized if trust is built through true partnership with city government.
This isn’t about slowing innovation, it’s about creating lasting and durable innovation that doesn’t crash and burn.
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