Robotaxis keep running into battles with firefighters on the streets of San Francisco, and the fire chief is fed up.
“They’re not ready for prime time,” said boss Jeanine Nicholson.
Nicholson talks about Waymo and Cruise driverless taxis that pick up passengers and drop them off in certain neighborhoods. Now these companies want to quickly expand their service to the entire city in unlimited numbers and in any weather, day or night. And state regulators seem poised to approve their request.
City leaders are concerned — not just in San Francisco, but also in Los Angeles and Santa Monica, where Waymo and another robotaxi company, Motional, say they are ready to deploy their AI-powered robotaxi service once state regulators this report green light.
The robo-taxis industry is allowing itself to move too fast and break things, these officials say, and are putting more robo-taxis on public roads despite proving inept at dealing with fire engines, ambulances, and police cars. And they say that California authorities set the rules, so cities have little leverage over how autonomous vehicles are regulated.
“I’m not against the technology. I understand that it’s important and that it’s the way the industry is evolving,” Nicholson said. “But we need to fix what’s not working right now before they impact the rest of the city.”
State regulators track robo-taxis collisions, but do not collect data on traffic flow issues such as roadblocks or fire truck obstructions.
But the fire department does. Since January 1, the fire service has logged at least 39 robotaxi incidents.
Although robotic cars don’t get tired, don’t drive drunk or high, and don’t get distracted by their iPhones, as the self-driving car industry is realizing, they often get stuck in traffic for no apparent reason. Sometimes these robo-roadblocks are short-lived, but other times the roadblocks last so long that a robotaxi company employee has to drive to the scene of the accident and move the car out of the way.
Fire Department incidents include reports of robotaxis:
- I run through yellow police tape and ignore warning signs to emerge onto a road littered with storm-damaged electrical cords, then pass emergency vehicles with some of those cords threaded around lidar sensors on the roof.
- Two times the access roads to the fire station were blocked, causing another fire station to send an ambulance to a medical emergency.
- Sits motionless on a one-way street, forcing a fire engine to reverse and take a different route to a burning building.
- I pulled up behind a fire truck whose emergency lights were on, parked there, and interfered with firefighters unloading ladders.
- Enter an active fire location, then park a tire on a fire hose.
Two cruise robotic taxis drive through police cordons into an emergency scene where electrical wires got caught on lidar sensors on the roof.
(John Phillip Bettencourt)
After a mass shooting on June 9 that left nine people injured, a robotic taxi blocked a lane in front of emergency responders in the city’s Mission District. Another lane was open, but in a press release, the fire department said the blockage could have been “catastrophic” on a narrower street.
To deal with a troubled Robotaxi, firefighters try to communicate with a remote-controlled Robotaxi operator, who can sometimes move the car out of the way.
Should this prove impossible, the Robotaxi company will have to send a human to the scene of the accident. In one instance, a firefighter had to smash a window to get a robotic taxi to move out of the way.
“Dealing with Life and Death”
The fire chief said every Robotaxi company offers training on how to deal with “bricked” vehicles.
“We have 160,000 calls a year. “We don’t have the time to personally attend to a car that’s in the way when we’re going to an emergency,” she said.
Cruise spokeswoman Hannah Lindow said the company is “proud of our publicly reported safety record, which includes driving millions of miles in an extremely complex urban environment.” Dealing properly with emergency response personnel is important to us. As such, we maintain an open line of communication with first responders to receive feedback and discuss specific incidents to improve our response.”
Waymo issued a prepared statement: “Safety is at the core of our mission and we’ve consistently shared more details than anyone.” [autonomous vehicle] companies regarding our methods and insights into our performance. We believe this transparency will benefit our riders – who enjoy a safe, accessible and enjoyable mobility option tens of thousands of times a week – and stimulate more discussion about safety in the industry.”
Nicholson acknowledged that no one has ever been killed or injured as a result of Robotaxi misconduct. “But I don’t want anything bad to happen because we can’t get to the crime scene. A fire can double its size in a minute. It’s a matter of life and death, and I’m not saying that dramatically.”
The robotaxi industry in California is under the jurisdiction of two state agencies — the Department of Motor Vehicles, which issues permits and is responsible for safety, and the California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates commercial passenger transportation, including buses, taxis, and limousines.
The supply commission is scheduled to vote on the expansion of the robotaxis on June 29. The resolutions she will vote on make it clear that under the agency’s own rules, problems such as traffic flow and disruption to rescue workers cannot be used to deny expansion permits. The resolutions identify four “goals” to consider: inclusion of people with disabilities; improved transportation for the disadvantaged; reduction of greenhouse gases; and passenger safety.
Critics point out that while the Commission takes care of the safety of Robotaxi passengers, it leaves other safety issues to the DMV. The DMV collects data on collisions and has the power to suspend permits, but so far has not taken any action or commented on Robotaxi disruption to firefighters.
The DMV declined to make its director Steve Gordon available for an interview, but issued a statement saying its four-year-old rules could be changed at some point: “The DMV has its regulations on autonomous vehicles developed through a public process with stakeholders (e.g. local, state, federal agencies, academics, interest groups, industry representatives) providing input to the development. Comments made during this process were considered and incorporated into the final rationale as part of the rulemaking process. The DMV implemented the first set of regulations in 2014, the second in 2018 and the third in 2019. Future regulations will use a similar process, inviting members of the public and other stakeholders to participate and provide comments .”
Robotaxi regulation issues go beyond robotaxi expansion: The entire way California regulates autonomous technology is being called into question.
The DMV has come under fire in the state assembly, which passed a bill in May that would strip the agency of some of its powers to regulate driverless heavy-duty trucks. Several lawmakers said they voted in part because they felt the DMV had done a poor job of regulating self-driving cars.
Security data censored
In 2021, the DMV entered into a court-approved agreement with Waymo that allows self-driving car makers to censor not only trade secrets but also basic safety performance information, including most details of collision reports as well as information about how the company handles emergencies self-driving cars bypasses .
The industry is strict about the information it makes available to the public about its operations on public roads.
Waymo won’t say how many cars it operates in San Francisco. Cruise said the company operates 150 to 300 cars, but declined to be more specific. Neither company will say how big and how fast its fleet will grow. Neither Waymo nor Motional will say how many robo-taxis they are testing in Santa Monica and LA
San Francisco city officials, a notoriously fractious group, agree that they will oppose the expansion plan, from Mayor London Breed onwards, until a solution is found to address traffic flow, job site issues and better communications between the companies and the city .
“Typically, the mayor is on the side of the corporations and the supervisors are on the other side,” said board member Aaron Peskin. “We say: don’t give them everything they want until these things are proven. Don’t make us guinea pigs.”
The fire chief wonders why the ability to handle emergency situations hasn’t been given a high priority.
“If they can do all of this with AI, I’m sure they can figure it out,” Nicholson said.
The Services Commission has collected statements of support from dozens of groups, including business groups like the Silicon Valley Leadership Group and disability advocates like the American Council for the Blind. The former argue that the development of robotaxi is essential to keep California at the forefront of innovation, the latter argue that easy and equitable transportation for all people is a social good that benefits everyone. No one on either side of the debate has disputed either claim.
But authorities including the Los Angeles Department of Transportation and the City of Santa Monica have submitted statements to the commission, arguing that the Robotaxi service should be rolled out gradually as problems are identified and fixed. Both also called for significantly more data transparency on security issues at Robotaxi.
Industry countered with motions opposing any kind of gradual introduction.
Why the rush? Robotaxi companies have poured huge sums into developing expensive artificial intelligence technologies and are looking to get a return on their investment.
Cruise, owned by General Motors, has big pockets. Waymo, owned by Google’s Alphabet, goes even deeper. But the pressure is great. In October, Ford and Volkswagen closed their robotaxi joint venture, Argo, after concluding they would get a better return if they invested the money in electric cars and driver assistance and safety systems.
The Supply Commission’s robotaxi expansion measure should be considered as part of a June 29 “approval agenda” package that will include 50 orders and resolutions on a variety of issues to be adopted by the agency’s five commissioners with a single vote or are to be rejected. After this story was published, the vote was moved to July 13th.
One of those commissioners, Attorney John Reynolds, was appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2021. At the time, he was serving as General Counsel for Cruise.
