Saturday, Feb. 21, 2026
4th edition of the 14th year of SmartDrivingCars eLetter
Alain Kornhauser, Feb. 20, “….. The real value proposition of ADS is the unleashing from the beginning the availability of high-quality mobility to today’s non-drivers: those too young, too old or otherwise not permitted to drive, those too poor to drive, those who for whatever reasons don’t like or want to drive, those who can’t get a ride from a family member or friend and add a valuable additional layer of crash mitigation to more effectively combat driver misbehavior.
The GTRs for ADS will enable NHTSA to help this nation continue to lead in this technology and seriously begin to capture the societal value of affordable high-quality mobility as well as its substantive crash mitigation assistance.” Read more
Hmmmm… Vehicle Safety is only one side of the Highway Mobility public policy - the Risk side. There is also a Societal Value side that is weighed in the establishment and enforcement of public policy, rules and regulations. Moreover, the safety side also has two components, crash avoidance, and crash mitigation. Because of the deep human behavioral coupling with freedom and privacy it is exceedingly challenging for policy rules and regulations to be effective in crash avoidance. Consequently, the public has substantially advanced safety and enabled the unprecedented capture of societal value delivered by highway transportation through crash mitigation rather than demanding crash avoidance. The deliberation of ADS deserves the same balance. It can’t solve crash avoidance until the misbehaving driver become behaving riders. ADS can perform as well and better than well behaving drivers in well behaved situations and, because they can see better than we can and can react faster than we can and can take into account more information than we can. Thus, ADS further enhances crash mitigation and make us safer. ADS has the unique opportunity of both reducing the risk and increasing the value captured by society. Alain
The Real Case for Driverless Mobility
Narrated by Fred Fishkin, Available now
Published in 2024 (but still relevant)!!! Go to Amazon.com…
SmartDrivingCars ZoomCast 406/PodCast 406 w/ Michael Sena New Automated Driving Regs
Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser is responding to NHTSA request for comment on proposed UN Global Technical Regulation on Automated Driving Systems. Consultant and author Michael Sena joins Alain and co-host Fred Fishkin for episode 407 of Smart Driving Cars. What’s missing in the proposal? Tune in and subscribe.
- 0:00 open
- 1:00 Alain submits comments to NHTSA on new UN Global Technical Regulation on Automated Driving Systems. Explains background.
- 18:54 Michael Sena on the proposed regulation and Alain’s comments
- 26:45 Why is it important for the United States to be on board with what the UN is formulating?
- 30:00 Focus of comments is going beyond safety to societal value of driverless mobility
- 48:30 First production Cybercab has arrived
- 59:10 Smart Driving Car newsletter links to several AI pieces
- 1:07:30 This Week in Spaceflight NASA Starliner Report
- 1:09:19 Alain cheers on U.S. Ice Hockey vs. Canada
Deadline 2/7/26
2026 Automated transportation Symposium (ATS)
8th Bridging Transportation Researchers (BTR#8)
August 12 & 13, 2026
Staff, Jan 23, “…SUMMARY: The United Nations Working Party on Automated/Autonomous and Connected Vehicles (GRVA), under the World Forum for the Harmonization of Vehicle Regulations (WP.29) at United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), has proposed a draft Global Technical Regulation (GTR) for Automated Driving Systems (ADS). NHTSA is seeking public comment on the draft GTR to help inform the U.S. government’s position, including how that position could relate to any future….” Read more
Hmmmm… A should read! Alain
NHTSA, Feb. 21, “…, “Non-rulemaking docket….” Read more
Hmmmm… Click to view the Comments. Make a Comment click here before midnight Monday, February 23, 2026. Alain
Claude.How to set up Claude the right way (so youactually stop going back to ChatGPT).
R. Hassid, Feb 17, “…You think Claude is “like ChatGPT but from Anthropic.” A chatbot. A text box. You type, it responds. That was true in 2024. In 2026, Claude is six things:…” Read more
Hmmmm… In case you haven’t tried it, you should. It can be a useful tool… your pan and shovel in today’s gold rush. Alain
An A.I. Pioneer Warns the Tech ‘Herd’ Is Marching Into a Dead End
Cade Metz, Jan 26, “Throughout his 40-year career as a computer scientist, Yann LeCun has earned a reputation as one of the world’s leading experts on artificial intelligence and a man with a penchant for throwing verbal grenades.
He was one of three pioneering researchers who received the Turing Award, often called “the Nobel Prize of computing,” for their work on the technology that is now the foundation for modern A.I. For more than a decade, he also served as chief A.I. scientist at Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram.
But after leaving Meta in November, Dr. LeCun has become increasingly vocal in his criticism of Silicon Valley’s single-minded approach to building intelligent machines. He argues that the technology industry will eventually hit a dead end in its A.I. development — after years of work and hundreds of billions of dollars spent. …” Read more
Hmmmm… Worth paying attention here. Alain
R. Hassid, Feb 17,
Think back to 2023.
ChatGPT had just come out. Viral sensation. So you tried it.
It was good, but was it this good? Like, good enough for OpenAI to be worth $830 billion, while losing $17 billion a year?
You thought, “AI must be a bubble”…” Read more
Hmmmm… Is OpenAI = Enron??? Alain
| [NASA’s Starliner Report Is BRUTAL | This Week In Spaceflight](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM3jAvRgXfo&list=PL7SbFivj3VrnWKF8Fr270KNsK7eGLW3PN&index=1) |
E. Segal, Feb 20, “NASA just released a hard-hitting Starliner investigation report that calls out not only hardware issues—but decision-making, leadership, and program culture—after propulsion anomalies led to a temporary loss of 6-DOF control during the 2024 Crew Flight Test.…” Read more
Hmmmm… Yipes. Alain
Orf 467F25 MOVES-style Mobility Symposium
Orf467F25 students, Dec. 11, “Various student perspectives on MOVES-style mobility around the country. Final project presentations & preliminary reports by students in the class.” Read more
Hmmmm… Students are putting together a compendium of their findings that will be linked by future version of the SDC eletter. Alain
HandyRides Update
Alain Kornhauser, Feb. 5, “Starting to come out of stealth mode.” Hmmmm… Our mission:
Elizabeth & Alain. 🙂