Table Of Content
- LAPD seeks public’s help identifying driver, victims in street takeover hit-and-run
- In A Divided San Francisco, Private Tech Buses Drive Tension
- Some writers and readers wrestle with tough subjects at Los Angeles Times Festival of Books
- The invisible seafaring industry that keeps the internet afloat
- Letters to the Editor: Automate everything? Driverless taxis mean more jobs taken from humans
- Why Cruise is keeping half of its driverless fleet off the streets of SF
They've tallied more than 55 incidents where self-driving cars have gotten in the way of rescue operations. Those incidents include driving through yellow emergency tape, blocking firehouse driveways, running over fire hoses and refusing to move for first responders. The move comes after one of Cruise's driverless cars struck a pedestrian in downtown San Francisco earlier this month. The incident involved a woman who was first hit by a human driver and then thrown onto the road in front of a Cruise vehicle. The Cruise vehicle braked but then continued to roll over the pedestrian, pulling her forward, then coming to a final stop on top of her. US states encouraged experimentation by dropping regulatory barriers, with cities, citizens and transport policymakers having little say.
LAPD seeks public’s help identifying driver, victims in street takeover hit-and-run
Cruise ridehail services are not available at this time, but you can join the waitlist to be one of the first. "We don't really need traffic cones to show how vulnerable they are," says the Safe Street Rebel organizer. "...look forward to working with the California DMV to make any improvements and provide any data they need to reinforce the safety and efficiency of our fleet." Another accident happened in the Mission District where a driver ran a red light and crashed into the Cruise vehicle which had stopped in the middle of the intersection.
In A Divided San Francisco, Private Tech Buses Drive Tension
In reality, self-driving cars are not "autonomous vehicles," as is often claimed. The gatherings in both cities questioned Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recent veto of a bill that would have required human safety drivers in heavy autonomous trucks — which aren’t on the road yet but could be soon. Cruise and another robotic car pioneer, Waymo, already have been charging passengers for rides in parts of San Francisco in autonomous vehicles with a back-up human driver present to take control if something goes wrong with the technology.
Some writers and readers wrestle with tough subjects at Los Angeles Times Festival of Books
The suspension came after the DMV reviewed the Oct. 2 crash , in which a non-Cruise driver first struck a pedestrian, pushing the pedestrian into the path of a Cruise robotaxi. The Cruise vehicle ended up pinning and dragging the pedestrian, causing multiple traumatic injuries, officials said. "Many of the claimed benefits of (autonomous vehicles) have not been demonstrated, and some claims have little or no foundation," Ryan Russo, the director of the transportation department in Oakland, California, told the commission last month.
G.M. to Cut Spending on Cruise Self-Driving Unit - The New York Times
G.M. to Cut Spending on Cruise Self-Driving Unit.
Posted: Wed, 29 Nov 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]
Safe Street Rebel isn't the only group that's had issues with the autonomous vehicles. San Francisco's police and fire departments have also said the cars aren't yet ready for public roads. They've tallied 55 incidents where self-driving cars have gotten in the way of rescue operations in just the past six months. Over the past couple of years, driverless cars have become ubiquitous throughout San Francisco.
Cruise probe blames poor internet, bad leadership, ‘flawed' decisions for driverless car woes - NBC Bay Area
Cruise probe blames poor internet, bad leadership, ‘flawed' decisions for driverless car woes.
Posted: Thu, 25 Jan 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]
Though Cruise has had the highest number of high-profile San Francisco problems in recent weeks, the second company operating driverless cars in the city—Waymo, owned by Google parent company, Alphabet Inc.—has had more crashes reported nationwide. Between July 2021 and July 2023, Waymo reported 150 crashes to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration compared to Cruise’s 78. In May, a Waymo car killed a small dog in San Francisco while in autonomous mode with a test driver in the front seat. The company called the crash unavoidable and said the car correctly identified the dog but “was not able to avoid contact.” Waymo operates in Phoenix and San Francisco, and says it’s “ramping up” in Los Angeles County and Austin.
It says Cruise did not disclose information about its car's subsequent “pull-over maneuver” that dragged the woman after the initial impact, and that the DMV only obtained full footage nine days after the crash. This is the first time that Cruise has demonstrated its Level 4 capabilities. Its main rival, Google spinoff Waymo, has been testing its fully driverless vehicles in Phoenix for over a year, and recently announced it would be making its Level 4 taxi service available to more customers. The company had planned to launch a commercial taxi service in 2019 but failed to do so, and it has yet to publicly commit to a new date. They're mostly run by Cruise, which is owned by GM, and Waymo, which is owned by Google parent company Alphabet.
Why Cruise is keeping half of its driverless fleet off the streets of SF
As transport policy expert David Zipper has argued, most cities want to see fewer car trips overall, and more shared transit and physically active travel such as walking and cycling. While the companies learn to drive safely in complex environments, San Francisco and Phoenix are learning whether the technology is creating more problems than it promises to solve. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune.
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City leaders attempted to halt the expansion by highlighting these incidents, but were ultimately unsuccessful. "We need actual people behind the wheel with a pulse and a brain that know how to maneuver in sticky situations," San Francisco Supervisor Shamann Walton said at Tuesday rally protesting the driverless cars. "These Cruise vehicles are dangerous on our streets. When they see tragedy or see danger or there's an obstacle in their way, all they know how to do is freeze." During our operational pause over the last few months, Cruise maintained ongoing and extensive testing in complex, dynamic simulated environments and on closed courses, enabling continuous retraining and improvement.
The vehicle then stopped but, according to Cruise, “attempted to pull over,” dragging the woman an additional 20 feet. Cruise says this sort of evasive maneuver was built into the vehicle’s software to promote safety, and is required by both California and federal regulators. Moving forward, Chiu, the San Francisco city attorney, said officials are still working on their request to appeal Waymo’s permits to operate their robotaxi service in the city. On Thursday, just two days after the California Department of Motor Vehicles suspended Cruise’s driverless permits, the company said it would suspend all driverless operations in the country to examine its process and earn back public trust. In a video released by the company, a Cruise employee is seen in the passenger seat while the car drives itself through the darkened streets of San Francisco. Cruise’s vehicles all have an emergency switch in the center channel near the gear shift in case something goes wrong, and they are also monitored remotely by Cruise employees.
"Most of the problems they are facing is software related. It's a bug, it's a glitch, it's a very complicated software. But the AI is the core of this technology," he says. "(The companies) know the problems. The users, the public are reporting those kinds of problems. Now it is on the part of the company. They have to be fast and to solve those problems. Patch (that) software." Clashing with the state Legislature and California’s biggest cities over safety, the Newsom administration races ahead with driverless vehicle deployment. Safe Street Rebel has cataloged hundreds of near misses and blunders with Cruise and Waymo vehicles over the past few months — even without traffic cones. The lead-up to the commission's vote prompted the Safe Street Rebel group to start "coning," as they call it.
