Sam Schwartz and Cary Pepper on their New Novel AutoKill

Event details Date: Wednesday, September 9, 2026 Time: 6:00 PM Campus: Hunter College Type: Career / Professional About this event To launch the fall season of public programming at Roosevelt House, the Sam Schwartz Transportation Research Program (SSTRP) is excited to present acclaimed engineer and planner “Gridlock Sam” Schwartz —who “knows everything about how cars and people don’t get along” (New York Times Book Review)—and his co-author Cary Pepper on their debut novel, AutoKill . The authors will be in conversation with Kelly McGuinness , Director of SSTRP. It’s 2036, and autonomous vehicles are reshaping American life—until a fatal CAV (Connected Autonomous Vehicles) crash sparks a conspiracy that could turn deadly on a massive scale. The book is a fast-paced thriller exploring technology, capitalism, and politics through the eyes of a climate scientist, a displaced trucker, and a federal investigator racing to stop a plot years in the making. Among the topics to be considered are what it’s like to work with a co-author, the transition from nonfiction to fiction, and the real-world questions AutoKill raises about the future of autonomous vehicles. The novel was covered in a recent New York Times article, An Expert in Traffic Jams Has a Scary Idea: What if the Cars Turn on Us? Last month, SSTRP released a report examining how driverless taxis could shape New York City streets. Sam Schwartz is the Chair and Founder of the Transportation Research Program at Roosevelt House, where he has also served as the Theodore W. Kheel Fellow, teaching a course on NYC Transportation. He founded Sam Schwartz Engineering and was CEO from 1995-2021 and wrote a column on transportation for the Daily News from 1990 to 2022. Previously, Schwartz was New York City’s Traffic Commissioner and the Chief Engineer of the NYC Department of Transportation. He started his transportation career in the late 1960s as a NYC cabbie and joined the Traffic Department as a junior engineer in 1971. His most recent books include No One at the Wheel: Driverless Cars and the Road of the Future (2018) and Street Smart: The Rise of Cities and The Fall of Cars (2015), which together lay out a recipe for cities faced with rapid changes in modes, automation, demographic shifts, and travelers’ preferences. AutoKill is his first novel. Cary Pepper is novelist, screenwriter, and award-winning-playwright whose work has been presented throughout the US and internationally. He is a four-time contributor to Applause Books’ Best American Short Plays series. Among his full-length plays, How It Works was an Ashland New Plays Festival finalist and Cufflinked was a semifinalist. Among his one-act plays, The Walrus Said won the Religious Arts Guild Playwriting Competition; Small Things won the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival One Act Play Contest; Party Favors won the Goshen Peace Play Contest. Most recently, From the Hoot won the Playwrights First Award and House of the Holy Moment Official event details: https://events.cuny.edu/cec/sam-schwartz-and-cary-pepper-on-their-new-novel-autokill/