Activists in San Francisco have devised a new but simple way to stop self-driving cars following fatal incidents and headaches from autonomous vehicles.
The Safe Streets Rebel protest group, which works to keep pedestrians safe, has posted several videos on their social media platforms showing them crippling the robotic taxis by placing a traffic cone on the hood.
The move comes after robotic vehicles were blamed for a series of incidents, including killing a dog in June and hitting a bus in March.
The campaign coincides with the California Public Utilities Commission’s vote on expanding self-driving car services. The two main robo-taxi companies are Cruise, owned by General Motors, and Waymo, owned by Google.
On Instagram, Safe Streets Rebel dubbed the campaign “The Week of Cone.” “It’s a blast.” “We don’t damage anyone’s property, it’s very fixable, but it’s a fun and effective tactic that has had a lot of traction,” a member of the group told The Guardian.
Placing a traffic cone on the hood of the driverless car disables it. Protesters say they are doing this to raise concerns about the safety issues surrounding robotic cars
Self-driving cars have been implicated in a number of incidents, including crashing into a city bus
The cone fools the vehicle’s sensors into thinking there is an obstacle ahead, causing the ride to stop.
In a statement, Waymo condemned the protesters as “vandalism” and accused the group’s members of encouraging “unsafe and disrespectful behavior on our streets.” The company promised to notify authorities if tampering with cars was found.
Cruise highlighted his public service in a statement at the cone protest.
“The cruise fleet provides free rides for night workers without reliable transportation, has delivered over 2 million meals to San Franciscans affected by food insecurity, and collects food waste from local businesses.”
“The intentional blocking of vehicles hampers these efforts and risks causing traffic congestion for local residents,” the press release continued.
KRON reported that city officials also spoke out against the protest, pointing out that if a car broke down, technical experts would have to reverse it, which could potentially lead to even more traffic jams.
Cruise also argued that his cars had not suffered a single death or serious injury after cruising 3 million miles on the streets of San Francisco.
Safe Streets Rebel aims to make public spaces safer for pedestrians and cyclists, while also promoting more funding for public transport. The targeted fight against robo-cars represents a new approach for the group, their previous goals were human drivers.
Last month, the group made headlines for a protest against public transportation cuts in which a member dressed as California Governor Gavin Newsom threw a piñata, reports the San Francisco Standard.
“They still need wide roads, tire wear, they have cameras everywhere.” It’s not just about, “Are they safer than a human diver?” ‘ one activist told The Guardian.
Waymo is owned and operated by Alphabet, Google’s parent company
In a statement, Waymo condemned the protesters, saying it was a form of “vandalism.”
In an interview with ABC San Francisco, another member of the group said, “Even if you have the perfect driver that these are advertised as, they’re still fundamentally unsafe like a two-ton metal box moving around town. “
The Safe Streets Rebels’ concerns were echoed by San Francisco Police Chief Jeanine Nicholson, who urged officers to slow down to allow more self-driving cars more freedom on the streets.
“Two vehicles actually stopped in front of fire engines trying to exit the fire station door to make emergency calls,” Chief Nicholson told KTVU.
In June, a cruise car was accused of blocking emergency vehicles from entering the scene of a shooting. Also in June, two Waymo cars stopped near the city’s Pride Parade.
Billy Riggs, an expert on autonomous cars at the University of San Francisco, told KTVU that data shows self-driving cars are safer than human drivers.
“We’re still seeing problems where, just like a human driver, they encounter situations, one in a million situations they’ve never encountered before,” Riggs said.
The Cone protest is scheduled to end on July 9, but one protester told the Standard that coneing has become so popular it may have taken on a life of its own.
“People could just keep cheating on them, if not out of protest then just out of joy,” the activist said.
Waymo, which began as a secret project within Google in 2009, has been operating a driverless ride service in the Phoenix area since October 2020, but tackling the density and difficulty of more congested cities like San Francisco presents us with greater challenges overcoming robotic taxis.
It’s one of the reasons Cruise’s newly approved driverless service is so tightly controlled in San Francisco. In addition to being limited to locations and times when there is less traffic and fewer pedestrians on the roads, Cruise’s driverless service is also prohibited from operating in heavy rain or fog.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk promised his electric car company would operate a fleet of robotic taxis by the end of 2020. However, that did not happen
While Cruise’s proposal for driverless taxi service in San Francisco received widespread support from advocates who hoped the technology could be used in other cities, some transportation experts urged the Public Utilities Commission to tread carefully.
“Many of the claimed benefits (of autonomous vehicles) have not been demonstrated, and some claims have little or no basis,” Ryan Russo, the director of the Oakland, California, transportation division, told the commission in May.
Uber, the largest ride-hailing service, had hoped to have 75,000 self-driving cars on the road by 2019 and operate a driverless taxi fleet in at least 13 cities by 2022, according to court documents filed in a high-profile case against the Uber company, the stole Waymo trade secrets.
Uber eventually sold its autonomous driving division to Aurora in 2020 and still relies almost exclusively on human drivers, which have been harder to recruit since the pandemic.
And Tesla CEO Elon Musk promised his electric car company would operate a fleet of robotic taxis by the end of 2020. That didn’t happen, though Musk still promises it will eventually.