5 Bizarre Locations Robotaxis Are Driving In San Francisco

Two weeks in the past, I wrote about opposition to limitless robotaxi enlargement in San Francisco. Some pro-robotaxi teams and followers are desperate to see full enlargement of robotaxi providers within the San Francisco metro space (and broader), and the California Public Utilities Fee (CPUC) sees no purpose to halt the enlargement. Nevertheless, others, together with the San Francisco Hearth Division (SFFD) and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Company (SFMTA) desire a pause on enlargement for now, not less than. I wrote about a number of the points they’ve highlighted in that earlier article, however reporting has introduced out extra particular issues, and so they’re so intriguing that I couldn’t go up doing a followup piece on them.

Listed here are 5 odd instances of robotaxis driving in bizarre, off-limits locations or eventualities:

Picture courtesy of San Francisco Hearth Division.

Picture courtesy of San Francisco Hearth Division.

1. By means of electrical trolley wires: San Francisco has iconic, old-school electrical trolleys. It’s one of many few locations in North America nonetheless sporting such transportation choices. (Europe nonetheless has many of those.) Nicely, town was hit with a extreme rainstorm in March that ended up pushing a few of these wires fairly low — and a Cruise robotaxi reportedly drove by it and bought tangled in it. “A Cruise automotive then bought snarled within the overhead wire, dragging it upward the remainder of the block,” the San Francisco Chronicle writes. “Cruise personnel who retrieved the entangled automotive needed to manually again it up a half block ‘to launch the strain on the wire,’ in line with a San Francisco Hearth Division report. Nobody was contained in the automobiles on the time, and nobody was harm. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Company, which runs Muni, had already de-energized the traces by the point the Cruise taxi hit them.” Yikes! However not less than nobody was harm.
2. By means of yellow warning tape and sandwich boards: Apparently unaware of what yellow warning tape and sandwich boards imply — or simply not noticing that they have been within the automobiles’ path — Cruise robotaxis additionally drove proper into an space the place they weren’t imagined to drive throughout this storm. Timber had been downed, electrical energy wires had been downed — robotaxis acted as if it was simply another day and the indicators of warning didn’t imply something.
3. Into fireplace scenes: Robotaxis have additionally pushed proper into fireplace scenes that no regular human would drive into, and that has included operating over fireplace hoses. Some robotaxis have even blocked fireplace vans.
4. Into taking pictures scenes: Some robotaxis have reportedly additionally pushed proper into taking pictures scenes. I imply, give it some thought: how is a robotaxi imagined to know if individuals are taking pictures at one another throughout the road or on the facet of the road? (Aspect observe: we have now a gun drawback within the USA.) Fortunately, once more, nobody has seemingly been harm because of this — but. Additionally, it could be price noting that people also can by chance drive into taking pictures scenes.
5. In entrance of emergency responders: It’s not clear if they’ve been driving or parked in such eventualities, however what’s been claimed is that some robotaxis have blocked emergency responders from the place they should go.

Extra climate drama in my neighborhood. 2 driverless automobiles didnt detect 1) the warning tape blocking my avenue and a couple of) the down @SFMTA_Muni wires. Now theyre tousled like flies in sticky traps. 🌧 🤷🏽‍♂️ 🌧 @SFGate @kron4news @nbcbayarea pic.twitter.com/cLdGjvorRE

— John-Phillip 🐳 (@PopRag) March 22, 2023

There are additionally instances of robotaxis blocking totally different types of transit (buses, gentle rail, and so on.) and different site visitors. However, frankly, human drivers try this typically, too. It appears the CPUC doesn’t see proof that robotaxis are very irregular on this regard, so I’m personally refraining from any broad judgement on that matter myself for now.

What do you consider all of this? Simply want appear algorithm tweaks? Well worth the tradeoff of not having so many distracted, drunk, or reckless human drivers on the highway? Or ought to the robotaxi rollout be halted for now?

I do not like paywalls. You do not like paywalls. Who likes paywalls? Right here at CleanTechnica, we carried out a restricted paywall for some time, but it surely all the time felt unsuitable — and it was all the time powerful to resolve what we must always put behind there. In principle, your most unique and greatest content material goes behind a paywall. However then fewer folks learn it! We simply do not like paywalls, and so we have determined to ditch ours.

Sadly, the media enterprise remains to be a tricky, cut-throat enterprise with tiny margins. It is a unending Olympic problem to remain above water and even maybe — gasp — develop. So …