Self-driving cars have reportedly caused increased delays, confusion, and anxiety among public transit drivers as self-driving car companies plan to further expand their fleet. One city official explained, “We are very concerned that if autonomous vehicles are allowed limitless, driverless operations in San Francisco that the traffic impacts grow exponentially.”
Wired reports that San Francisco’s public transportation system is facing a new set of difficulties as a result of the increasing number of autonomous vehicles on the city’s roads. The rise in driverless vehicles, especially those produced by General Motors’ Cruise and Alphabet’s Waymo, has caused commuters in the city to become confused and uneasy. Records obtained by Wired have revealed a string of incidents involving autonomous vehicles that have delayed and inconvenienced passengers of buses and trains since September.
In one recent incident this week, five Waymo self-driving cars blocked traffic on a residential street in San Francisco’s Balboa Terrace district. The thick fog that had covered the area appears to have prevented the autonomous vehicles from moving. The software-powered convoy encountered the fog and decided to stop, unintentionally causing a traffic jam, claims Waymo spokesperson Chris Bonelli. After some time, the fog lifted and traffic resumed its course after several minutes of confused attempts by other drivers to get around the self-driving cars.
Elon Musk watches SpaceX launch (Joe Raedle /Getty)
In 2022, Breitbart News reported a similar incident in which at least six Cruise Robotaxis caused a traffic jam by blocking the street.
TechCrunch reports that more than half a dozen Cruise robotaxis stopped running and blocked a San Franciso street late on Tuesday night, preventing traffic from moving for hours until employees arrived and manually drove the self-driving vehicles away from the area. In a Reddit post, users described the situation, as well as posting pictures of the incident.
The cars appeared to stall at the intersection of Gough and Fulton Streets in San Francisco. A Cruise spokesperson commented on the issue, stating: “We had an issue earlier this week that caused some of our vehicles to cluster together. While it was resolved and no passengers were impacted, we apologize to anyone who was inconvenienced.”
City officials have urgently urged California state regulators to impose restrictions on the deployment of self-driving vehicles until the issues are resolved, as tech companies like Waymo and Cruise plan to increase their fleet of robotaxis in the near future. They contend that these alterations might have a long-term impact on the city’s transportation system as well as the welfare of its citizens.
Director of Transportation for Muni, Jeffrey Tumlin, has expressed his concerns about how driverless cars will affect San Francisco’s streets. “What we’re seeing is a significant uptick in traffic and other kinds of chaos on our streets,” he said. “We are very concerned that if autonomous vehicles are allowed limitless, driverless operations in San Francisco that the traffic impacts grow exponentially.”
Tumlin added, “When you encounter a vehicle with no human on board, it is dispiriting and disempowering. There’s no one there to communicate with at all.”
A Tesla using the company’s “Full Self-Driving” technology caused a major crash on the San Francisco Bay Bridge in November when it came to a sudden stop in the left hand lane of the busy bridge.
As Breitbart News reported:
The Intercept reports that nine people, including a 2-year-old child, were hurt in an eight-vehicle crash caused by a Tesla Model S on Thanksgiving Day on the San Francisco Bay Bridge. The collision happened as the car, which was utilizing Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” feature, abruptly changed lanes and stopped in the bridge’s far-left lane.
The Tesla driver claimed that he had been utilizing the “Full Self-Driving” feature at the time of the collision, according to eyewitness accounts. This assertion has been supported by surveillance video of the incident that the Intercept was able to obtain under the California Public Records Act.
The footage was made public at the same time that Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” feature was made available in North America. The feature was launched by Tesla CEO Elon Musk just hours before the accident, and he congratulated his team for reaching a “major milestone” in the process. According to the company, over 285,000 people in North America had access to the feature by the end of the previous year.
Read more at Wired here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan