California allows robo-taxis to expand and emergency responders aren't happy (www.npr.org)

submitted 10 months ago by beepboop@lemmy.sdf.org to c/technology@beehaw.org

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[-] FaceDeer@kbin.social 32 points 10 months ago

San Francisco's police and fire departments have urged the CPUC to oppose the expansion – they say they've tallied 55 incidents where self-driving cars have got in the way of rescue operations in just the last six months. The incidents include running through yellow emergency tape, blocking firehouse driveways and refusing to move for first responders.

I'd be curious to see how that compared to the number of idiot human drivers who got in the way and otherwise reacted incorrectly to emergency vehicles.

[-] ricecake@beehaw.org 19 points 10 months ago

Big difference is that a human can be yelled at and told what to do, and we currently don't have a good way for someone to do that with an autonomous vehicle.

[-] FaceDeer@kbin.social 4 points 10 months ago

As far as I'm aware, all autonomous vehicles have manual controls that can override them. The person inside the vehicle would have to take over when an emergency responder started yelling directions.

[-] ricecake@beehaw.org 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Some of the vehicles don't have anyone in them.

https://missionlocal.org/2023/05/waymo-cruise-fire-department-police-san-francisco/

One of the incidents in question.

[-] TQuid@beehaw.org 2 points 10 months ago

Well, you can just ram them out of the way with your firetruck. Obviously that's not a great option either, but if the FD does that then any damages are on the robot-taxi company.

[-] ricecake@beehaw.org 2 points 10 months ago

Sure, I suppose. Or just don't expand the system until there's some measure of system in place to keep the AI cars from fucking around in emergency situations.