Two weeks in the past, I wrote about opposition to limitless robotaxi enlargement in San Francisco. Some pro-robotaxi teams and followers are desirous to see full enlargement of robotaxi companies 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) need a pause on enlargement for now, at the least. I wrote about a few 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 move up doing a followup piece on them.

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

Picture courtesy of San Francisco Hearth Division.

Picture courtesy of San Francisco Hearth Division.

1. By way 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, the 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 via it and bought tangled in it. “A Cruise automobile 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 automobile needed to manually again it up a half block ‘to launch the strain on the wire,’ based on 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 at the least nobody was harm.
2. By way 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 presupposed 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 hearth scenes: Robotaxis have additionally pushed proper into hearth scenes that no regular human would drive into, and that has included operating over hearth hoses. Some robotaxis have even blocked hearth vehicles.
4. Into capturing scenes: Some robotaxis have reportedly additionally pushed proper into capturing scenes. I imply, give it some thought: how is a robotaxi presupposed to know if individuals are capturing at one another throughout the road or on the facet of the road? (Facet word: we’ve a gun drawback within the USA.) Fortunately, once more, nobody has seemingly been harm because of this — but. Additionally, it is perhaps value noting that people also can unintentionally drive into capturing scenes.
5. In entrance of emergency responders: It’s not clear if they’ve been driving or parked in such situations, 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 snarled like flies in sticky traps. 🌧 🤷🏽‍♂️ 🌧 @SFGate @kron4news @nbcbayarea pic.twitter.com/cLdGjvorRE

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

There are additionally circumstances of robotaxis blocking totally different types of transit (buses, mild rail, and many others.) and different site visitors. However, frankly, human drivers do this generally, 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 concentrate on all of this? Simply want appear algorithm tweaks? Definitely 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?

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