San Francisco is in an uproar over the constant disruption of robotic taxis to firefighters, police officers and other emergency medical workers.
The city’s fire chief on Thursday drew attention to the potentially dangerous encounters between driverless taxis and first responders, telling the Times in an interview she had “enough” the incidents, which include driving into active emergency situations and being parked on a fire hose.
Now the San Francisco Police Union has joined city officials in urging regulators to delay a vote scheduled for Thursday on a measure that would allow Waymo, Cruise and other robotaxi companies to expand in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Police Officers Assn. delivered a letter to the California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates the state’s operation of self-driving cars, asking that it “reconsider agenda items” at its upcoming meeting and postpone a vote until the issue is resolved.
“While we all welcome advances in technology, we must not be in such a hurry that we forget the human factor and the impact that such technology, left unchecked, can lead to dangerous situations,” said union president Tracy McCray.
The Commission has not responded to several requests for comment.
Waymo spokeswoman Katherine Barna said in a statement, “Because we operate in some of the densest parts of San Francisco and Phoenix, we seamlessly navigate and interact with active emergency vehicles day and night.” Indeed, we are encountering an active [emergency vehicle] every 100 miles in ours [more than 2 million] Miles of driving for drivers only.
“The vast majority of these often challenging and complex encounters went off without a hitch.”
Barna also noted that the company trains emergency personnel and “provides a phone number to reach Waymo directly in the event of a stop.”
Cruise spokeswoman Hannah Lindow also sent a statement.
“Improving road safety is our primary mission — not just for cruise passengers, but for everyone we share the road with,” she said. “This also means that we ensure that our vehicles have the least possible impact on city services. We have long met regularly with City of San Francisco officials and first responders and look forward to continuing our open communication with them.”
Lindow also said that Cruise has driven more than 2 million miles without any life-threatening injuries or deaths and that policymakers should also consider the “deeply troubling status quo” of injuries and traffic fatalities in San Francisco.
Both companies operate small passenger services in San Francisco.
Waymo requires its riders to enroll in the program and charges for the rides. Cruise isn’t charging yet, but is seeking the green light at next week’s Public Utilities Commission meeting.
Additionally, if the proposal goes through, it would be possible for an unlimited number of Waymo and Cruise robotic taxis to circulate and collect fares in all parts of the city, regardless of the weather.
Waymo and robotic taxi company Motional plan to launch driverless passenger service in Los Angeles and Santa Monica once they receive approval from the Public Utilities Commission. In written comments to the commission, the transportation authorities of both cities have raised concerns about how driverless technology is being managed by state regulators.
The San Francisco Fire Department has reported at least 39 incidents so far this year, including stopping robotic taxis at the entrance to a fire station, blocking emergency vehicles while trying to respond to emergencies, navigating through police cordons and driving into fallen electrical wires , in which the vehicle became entangled in its sensors on the roof, stopped at active fire locations (in one instance, a fire hose became entangled around the car’s axis), and stopped close enough behind a fire engine on a building fire to permit ladder unloading hinder.
When vans and other vehicles double park or otherwise block the road, in most cases the driver is in or near the vehicle. But when a Waymo or Cruise car gets stuck on the road, firefighters have to try to communicate with the operating company by radio.
Sometimes a remote operator is able to move the vehicle. Sometimes the fire department has to wait for a human employee to arrive and move the car.
No deaths or injuries were reported, but San Francisco Fire Chief Jeanine Nicholson told ABC7 News Bay Area on Thursday after the Times broke the story that “the biggest concern is that someone could become really seriously ill.” “Injured or killed.”
“We’ve been really lucky so far,” said the boss. “But it’s only a matter of time before something really, really catastrophic happens.”
No one involved in the debate disputes the notion that automated vehicles offer great prospects for safety and accessibility. Nicholson told The Times she believes the robotaxi AI needs to become much better at handling emergency situations before expanding its fleet.
It is unclear why these high-tech vehicles with their sensors and the programming of artificial intelligence have problems with emergency vehicles. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration launched an investigation into Tesla after the company’s driver-assistance software appeared to result in multiple collisions with parked police cars, ambulances and fire engines.
Public data on autonomous vehicle safety issues is hard to come by. NHTSA requires that serious collisions be reported to the agency, although it hides most of the narrative description of accidents from the public.
The California Department of Motor Vehicles requires that robotaxi companies report collisions of any kind. But in 2021, the DMV asked Waymo to sue the agency, and then the two worked out a court-approved deal that would allow Robotaxi companies to claim trade secrets to keep safety information private from the public.
The DMV seems to interpret this comparison broadly. The agreement even allows details of how a robotaxi company responds to emergencies to be redacted in supposedly public accident reports.
On Thursday, more than two years after the Public Utilities Commission approved self-driving vehicle transportation, the agency said it held a series of workshops on what data should be collected from self-driving vehicles and how much of it will be made available to the company should be public.
Two of the five commissioners, Genevieve Shiroma and John Reynolds, led the workshop. Previously, Shiroma held state government functions; Reynolds was most recently Cruise’s top attorney.
