Minneapolis City Council to vote on overriding mayor’s driverless car veto

Debate over driverless cars continues today in the Twin Cities as some Minneapolis City Council members are trying to override the mayor's veto of their proposed regulations. Meanwhile in St. Paul, city officials there are going to start studying the issue of these driverless vehicles. Bill Keller is joining us now with the latest over the ongoing debate. Good morning. Good morning. Well, supporters of this plan in Minneapolis to regulate cybercabs say that the ordinance would ultimately protect more than 10,000 rideshare drivers. But the bill was dead as soon as it hit the mayor's desk earlier this month. The Minneapolis City Council approved rules that would, among other things, require a human safety monitor in the driver's seat of all autonomous vehicles. But Mayor Jacob Frey vetoed the bill, saying that it defeats the purpose of driverless cars. Waymo, which is already testing its vehicles in Minneapolis, says the ordinance would essentially ban their service. Now, for the fourth time this year, the Minneapolis City Council will be voting to try and override the mayor's red pen. But even if the effort fails, Council Member Robin Wansley says that she will introduce another resolution. This one focused on saving rideshare worker jobs. The entire basis of this ordinance was also how do we protect workers. That is not what we're seeing in regulations across the country when it comes to autonomous vehicles. And Minneapolis had the opportunity to lead on that front and say that as we're welcoming technological investments in our city, We're not going to leave workers behind. Meanwhile, across the river in St. Paul, the city council there deciding yesterday not to rush into regulations, but instead voting to approve a study on how driverless cars would impact the city. The study would include things like how those rideshare drivers would affect public transportation, people with disabilities, and also going to consider public safety and emergency response. Our responsibility is to look out for the people of St. Paul, not for these corporations. so depending on what our recommendations are depending on what our community tells us there may be guardrails that we can put in place that allow for these vehicles to operate safely but we need to do the work first to figure out if that's even possible yeah right now there is no timeline in Saint Paul for how long that study will take in Minneapolis the city council expected to meet later this morning to try and override the mayor's veto their track record not good they're 0 and 3 but supporters may not have the votes again the original ordinance remember passed by a very narrow 6-7 margin. They need nine votes overall to try and override the mayor's veto. Back to you guys. Okay, we'll see what happens. Thank you, Bill.