On Thursday, the DC Council’s Committee on Transportation and the Environment is scheduled to vote on Chairman Charles Allen’s Autonomous Vehicle Deployment Authorization Amendment Act of 2026 (B26-0684). This week, 21 parents signed an open letter supporting the bill: 14 from seven of DC’s eight wards, joined by six neighbors in Maryland and Virginia. Their letter and names are below.
Are you a DC-area parent who wants safer streets for children?
Wednesday, November 11, 2026
To: Chairman Charles Allen and Members of the Committee on Transportation and the Environment, Council of the District of Columbia
Dear Chairman Allen and Members of the Committee:
We are parents who live in the District, and we are writing to ask you to vote yes on the Autonomous Vehicle Deployment Authorization Amendment Act of 2026 (B26-0684). We are joined by parents from neighboring communities in Maryland and Virginia whose kids go to school, play, and cross streets in the District every day.
Car crashes are one of the leading causes of death for young people in America, and most crashes come down to human mistakes: distraction, impairment, and speeding. Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are programmed to follow traffic laws, and they don’t text, don’t drink, and don’t get tired.
Every parent knows the feeling of worrying about our children’s safety outside and on the street. It starts long before we first bring them home from the hospital, but the visceral feeling of buckling a newborn into a car seat carries with us throughout our lives. Overjoyed and exhausted, we double-check the car seat multiple times to make sure it’s secure, and drive home more cautiously than ever before.
For the next couple years, we move our babies around in strollers, remaining on high alert for distracted and speeding drivers every time we cross the street. As they grow and seek independence, we spend the next several years teaching them to be vigilant: look both ways, cross the street carefully, never assume that a driver sees you.
Over time, every family develops its personal algebra for balancing freedom with fragility as our kids begin to walk, bike, or take the bus to school. Once teenagers begin to move independently and learn to drive, we teach them how to make these calculations themselves. Through it all, we live with the fear that a devastating and irreversible tragedy could befall our families – and all it would take is one person’s miscalculation behind the wheel: a moment of distraction, poor judgement, or impatience.
These miscalculations have a human toll. Traffic deaths in DC have effectively doubled since the launch of Vision Zero over a decade ago. And while we applaud the District’s efforts to build safer infrastructure for all road users and pursue equitable approaches to enforcement, we know that concrete and cameras cannot solve our traffic safety crisis alone.
AVs are not a silver bullet for traffic safety, but they are an important step in the right direction. This bill brings that option to DC residents carefully, beginning with a small and limited number of vehicles. It requires service in every ward, not just the wealthiest neighborhoods. It holds AV companies accountable if something goes wrong, requires companies to work with first responders, and collects fees from AV companies to fund public transit and support workforce transitions for current drivers. It is a responsible, DC-first approach, and it deserves your support.
We are not asking you to make our kids’ safety depend on technology alone. We want safer street designs, better transit, and effective enforcement against dangerous and reckless drivers. But we also want safer options available to our families – especially when they will improve safety for everyone on the street – and urge you to take action on behalf of our children and communities.
Please vote yes on B26-0684.
Sincerely,
DC Parents
Rachel McCleery, Parent in Ward 1
Bert Kaufman, Parent in Ward 1, Mt. Pleasant
Stan Veuger, Parent in Ward 1, Westminster
Jessica Nigro, Parent in Ward 2, Shaw
Dave Korkoian, Parent in Ward 3
Matthew Lipka, Parent in Ward 3, Forest Hills
Adam Raviv, Parent in Ward 3, AU Park
Andrew Siegel, Parent in Ward 3, Cleveland Park
Leila Ahlstrom, Parent in Ward 4
Adam Snider, Parent in Ward 4, Fort Totten
Thomas Lee, Parent in Ward 5, Bloomingdale
Ben LaRocco, Parent in Ward 6, Capitol Hill
Nicole DuPuis, Parent in Ward 7, Hillcrest
Varun Jain, Parent in Ward 7
Parents in Maryland and Virginia
Laura Chace, Parent in Bethesda, MD
Paul Mackie, Parent in Takoma Park, MD
Greg Rogers, Parent in Takoma Park, MD
Leslie Hayward, Parent in Takoma Park, MD
Pete Gould, Parent in Fairfax County, VA
Adam Kovacevich, Parent in Arlington, VA
George Longwell, Parent in West Springfield, VA
Signers signed as individuals. Organized by The Innovation Majority.