SF officials describe chaos from Cruise and Waymo vehicles as they try to slow their deployment

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Firefighters were battling a major house fire near the intersection of Hayes and Divisadero streets in the early hours of January 22, when a driverless cruise car began making its way to the emergency site.

Two firefighters stood in front of the car to prevent the car from hitting the hoses used to put out the growing flames, but it didn’t work. As the car continued to move forward, one of the firefighters took quick action and shattered the car’s front glass, causing the car to stop. First responders contacted Cruz, who sent workers to get the car out of the way.

“According to the firefighters who were involved in the water supply and security of the scene, the vehicle continued to enter the scene, endangering bystanders and risking operational integrity,” a fire official said.

A house fire near the intersection of Hayes and Divisadero streets in San Francisco was the site of an incident between Cruise’s self-driving car and emergency responders. | Kevin Truong / Standard

It was just one of 92 unique incidents between May 29 and December 31 — mostly due to Cruise — cited by San Francisco transit officials who are urging tighter oversight as robot taxi services seek to significantly expand its activities.

Other examples include an incident in which five self-driving vehicles stopped around a Mission bus, blocking its movement. In another instance, a cruise car nearly missed a Cole Valley light rail car when it came to a stop on the tracks.

General Motors-owned Cruise and Alphabet subsidiary Waymo are seeking approval from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to expand hours of operation and geographic coverage to much of the city, including the dense downtown area.

In letters addressed to the CPUC, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) and the San Francisco County Transportation Authority (SFCTA) said the uncontrolled growth of Waymo and Cruise’s robot taxi services could lead to additional hurdles for San Francisco travelers and emergency services. Francisco.

The notices follow a resolution from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in December that upheld calls for regulators to address safety and traffic concerns raised by public transit officials.

Among other reasons, San Francisco officials cited a lack of transparency from robot taxi providers and inadequate reporting of incidents as reasons for slowing their expansion. Cruise and Waymo did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

Public transport officials say the CPUC is currently not required to report unexpected stops that cause traffic disruption, meaning it’s impossible to fully understand their frequency or overall impact on the city.

As possible fixes, transportation officials have suggested the gradual rollout of robotic taxi fleets and additional rulemaking to curb the problems resulting from their initial rollout on public streets.

Who is driving?

Even when they sound the alarm, local transportation groups don’t have the power to restrict the use of robot taxis because they are heavily regulated by government agencies.

The Department of Motor Vehicles allows self-driving car companies to use their vehicles on public streets, while the CPUC regulates passenger transportation services.

David Zipper, a visiting fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School’s Taubman Center for State and Local Government who has researched the deployment of autonomous vehicles, said local agencies are largely “de-authorized” from overseeing robotaxis.

“They were preempted. They can’t really do anything,” Zipper said. “This is a big problem because the deployment of autonomous vehicles has a much greater potential to mess things up in dense urban areas.”

This partly explains why San Francisco public transit officials took the unusual step of taking their case directly to federal authorities with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which raised concerns about a custom-built autonomous shuttle developed by the San Francisco-based cruise line. Francisco.

The letter said that a significant expansion of the company’s presence in the city could “significantly disrupt street productivity for all travelers in San Francisco,” citing lane disruptions that could impact emergency services.

Alain Kornhauser, chair of autonomous vehicles at Princeton University, attributed the companies’ mistakes to an attempt to take market share from Lyft and Uber, rather than filling gaps in transportation.

“For me, the shame of these companies is that they have a solution and they are still looking for a problem,” Kornhauser said. “The purpose of this is not a selfie in a self-driving car; this should provide mobility to people who do not have it, and ultimately improve their quality of life.”

Zipper sees parallels in California’s haphazard and controversial rollout of passenger delivery services and the tactics used by their drone counterparts. He called San Francisco “the canary in the coal mine” on many issues that will become even more evident with a wider deployment.

“I really hope that the solution here is a legislative rethinking by the people of Sacramento of how we structure our structure because we are not living up to our obligations as public services to protect the safety, efficiency and fairness of transportation networks in our cities. especially in San Francisco,” Zipper said.

State legislators have spoken out in favor of curbing the new class of autonomous vehicles. Assembly Bill 316, which was introduced earlier this week, would ban the operation of an autonomous vehicle weighing more than 10,000 pounds unless a safety operator is physically present.

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texasstandard.news contributed to this report.

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