Member-only story
Florida Claims to be a Driverless Car Paradise. Critics Call It a Lawless Mess
The Sunshine State is luring AV companies with lax legislation, perennial fair weather, and an endless supply of retirees
In August 2012, just days before Floridians were set to vote in the primaries, Republican state house representative Jeff Brandes became the target of a peculiar attack ad.
“Technology is great, but driverless cars? Is this really a priority for our state?” an incredulous narrator asks in the 30-second ad. Canned footage shows an empty Prius roaming the streets of a cookie-cutter neighborhood, plowing through a stop sign, and nearly running over a woman with a walker. “Well, it was a priority for Jeff Brandes.”
The narrator accuses Brandes of being “out of touch” and too preoccupied with “driverless, remote-controlled cars” to fix Florida’s economy. The ad includes a soundbite of Brandes telling a local news station, “I had to convince the senate it wasn’t witchcraft” and ends with a bone-crushing car crash off screen.
