Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/01/29/san-francisco-sues-the-california-public-utilities-commission-over-its-decision-to-allow-the-expansion-of-waymo-autonomous-vehicles.html
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I thought California late last year suspended Cruise completely. Wasn’t that already a reversal of their previous decision last summer?
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I wish it were a permanent, irreversible loss of permit. That company should never be allowed to use public roads as testing grounds again based on this internal report that just came out:
Waymo may be somewhat better than Cruise based on (questionable) publicly available data but even if they operated perfectly under normal conditions I’ve still got major problems with them being allowed to operate vehicles that can’t, for example, follow instructions from emergency responders, and don’t have basic machine safety elements such as easily accessible shutoff switches or visual indicators to alert people around them when they’re going to start moving.
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The CPUC has also allowed insane rate hikes this year to the power company (PG&E) that needs money to fix their privately-owned infrastructure & deal with damages from huge fires caused by equipment failure. That decision, along with this one, make me think the CPUC (members appointed by governor Gavin Newsom) is in the pockets of big business.
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What we need is a way to ticket these cars for infractions. Since there is no person to sign the ticket, there needs to a switch to turn it off and allow a tow truck to haul it to a yard and wait for Waymo to pay the fine and storage fees. It’s not a great plan, but it’s a way for the city to keep these things out. Bonus, maybe I could pick up a nice Jaguar from auction.
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Doesn’t the city of San Francisco get to decide who can operate taxis in San Francisco?
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there’s often tension between what’s allowed to be decided at a city ( town, or county ) level and the state. similar to how there’s tension between what’s allowed to be decided at the state vs the federal level.
no idea about california and taxi laws specifically though.
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Its a fascinating Trolley Problem problem: Waymo will kill fewer people than the equivalent number of taxis, but they’ll be different people. “I’m sorry we killed your Mum but, if we weren’t operating, two other people would have been killed.”
Fuck pg&e.
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All of the problems with autonomous vehicles on public streets wrap up into one fatal flaw: who is accountable when they cause harm? Unless that is the CEO, individually responsible as if they were driving the car, the company will make decisions based on what’s best for their bottom line not what’s safe for the public.
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I live in SF. The Cruise cars were kind of a disaster, but the Waymo ones, which have been driving around my neighborhood for well over a year and I’ve ridden in several times, are fine.
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Based on what I’ve seen the Waymo ones generally do fine under normal operating circumstances, and most people agree that they’re much better than Cruise, but to me that’s insufficient. For one thing they need to be able to do some of the basics that human-driven vehicles can do in unusual circumstances, such as following instructions from a cop or firefighter who is telling them that they need to turn around ASAP to clear an intersection for emergency vehicles.
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I dont know. I live down town and I’ve seen Waymos drop off in the right lane of incoming traffic right next to no stopping any time signs. I take a picture whenever I see it.
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Ok, that’s bad, but… Lyft, Uber, and taxi drivers drop people off in ‘no stopping’ or other unsafe areas with some frequency, too. I’m sure you’d agree that banning all ride share and livery services is not exactly the right way to go.
Maybe they just shouldn’t be allowed downtown? It’s only recently they’ve been allowed in the northeast corner of the city.
You can easily ticket the uber driver. There’s a clear person at fault.
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Can they not just ticket the company operating the car for traffic violations? Seems like if they run a red light or make an illegal turn or even park illegally, that should be a ding on the company’s driving record. Too many ‘points’, and they need to pull the cars off the road to go to ‘traffic school’ to clean their record.
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We don’t have that infrastructure to give companies points. Absolutely needs to be done, but it’s not there. AFAIK, the cars can’t even take tickets. Without a driver, putting it on the windshield is even less a delivery mechanism than it is for regular cars.
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Ugh, the PUC just seems to be generally awful and in the pockets of the entities it’s supposed to be regulating. They also destroyed solar power in California by giving in to PG&E.
And, more than that, is allowing PG&E to do unnecessarily expensive “fixes” to that infrastructure that they only want to do because a fixed percentage of the money they spend on infrastructure can be turned into profits. Which is also why the PUC has effectively helped PG&E kill private solar in favor of giant, centralized PG&E solar farms…
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I have yet to see any credible study concluding that self-driving cars, especially in their current state, are inherently less likely to be involved in traffic fatalities than human-driven taxis.
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I am laughing at the image of the robot cars in traffic school.
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