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A stalled Waymo brought Kamala Harris' motorcade to a halt in SF
- dcmatt 2y agoThis feels like I, Robot— except instead of killer robots in a tunnel, we’ve got driverless cars cluelessly blocking motorcades
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y agoThis would be de rigueur for what Cruise did in Austin, except to everyone else who wasn't a POTUS candidate.
- newfocogi 2y agoIt appears that a police officer was able to enter the Waymo to move it. I’ve never heard of this before. Are law enforcement trained to do this in all areas that Waymo operates? Can a random person open the door of a Waymo and move it at will?
- whimsicalism 2y ago> Can a random person open the door of a Waymo and move it at will? No, IIRC they all have law enforcement procedures which probably include ability to move car
- kotaKat 2y agohttps://waymo.com/firstresponders/ https://waymo.com/firstresponders/ Waymo has an emergency team that will guide LE on taking over a Waymo. They'll shut it down, pop the doors, and give them a code to punch in on the wheel controls to disengage it and put it in manual mode to shuttle it out of the way.
- Brian_K_White 2y agoThis kinda sounds like employing the police to do your job. Police/Fire etc should absolutely have this ability, but that is a seperate issue.
- Aerroon 2y agoIf police/fire get this ability commonly then will they start asking for it with regular cars as well?
- weaksauce 2y agothey already do this regularly. just instead of driving it off the road they ram it with their vehicles off the road. edit: or if there's time they will tow it.
- paulddraper 2y agoIf the driver is incapacitated, they will move the vehicle themselves
- valval 2y agoMoving a car if the driver is incapacitated or not present?
- 1659447091 2y agoblock access to a fire hydrant they may break the windows put the car in neutral and move it out of the way
- 2y ago
- bink 2y agoI've seen a Waymo block the Muni tracks before. When a train finally showed up a cop appeared in less than a minute. They didn't jump in the car but they did knock on the window and speak to a support rep. The rep was able to instruct the car to move forward and turn onto a side street. It then blocked the side street for a bit before eventually moving on. While I'm not against self-driving taxis I have some serious concerns over how these cars will impact emergency response in an earthquake or fire if the cars become more prevalent.
- paulddraper 2y ago> I have some serious concerns over how these cars will impact emergency response in an earthquake or fire More than meatbags?
- pclmulqdq 2y agoThe meatbags are panicky apes, but they know how to get out of they way.
- thrill 2y agoI've personally seen more than once the meatbags confuse the accelerator for the brake.
- dghlsakjg 2y agoHave you ever really watched an emergency vehicle try to get through a traffic clogged road. The Meatbags most certainly do not now how to get out of the way.
- pclmulqdq 2y agoDo you, by chance, live in NYC? That is the only place I have lived where the meatbags regularly do not get out of the way of sirens. In most other places, they make a great effort.
- 2y ago
- dist-epoch 2y agoYou can hear the police officer speaking with someone through the car open window.
- AlotOfReading 2y ago"Autonomous car blocks motorcade" is one chase scene away from a scifi thriller. It truly is the future.
- charlie0 2y agoThe thought this was done on purpose to send a message crossed my mind. The Dems have been rather anti-tech lately. Would make for a good sci-fi movie.
- michelb 2y agoThey are now pro-tech since they're campaigning after all: https://qz.com/kamala-harris-is-suddenly-talking-about-crypto-1851658902 https://qz.com/kamala-harris-is-suddenly-talking-about-crypt...
- charlie0 2y agoThey are now "pro" on a few things they weren't so "pro" on just a few months ago, which is quite interesting and telling if you're paying attention.
- babl-yc 2y agoIf this is the the most concerning Waymo headline for the month @ 100k rides/week I'd say things are going pretty well on their end
- ceejayoz 2y agoI think this is more concerning for the Secret Service than Waymo.
- AlotOfReading 2y agoI would be shocked if Waymo doesn't start avoiding motorcade routes preemptively just to prevent this headline from ever occurring again. They're extremely sensitive to bad PR given the nature of the industry.
- buildbot 2y agoI think part of the issue is those routes are somewhat unknown ahead of time?
- goldcd 2y agoI suspect the easiest thing would be a "return to base and shutdown" button that the Secret Service could trigger at short notice - would cause problems for everything wanting to use a Waymo, but I suspect the SS are quite OK with causing disruption already.
- klyrs 2y agoSounds like fake movie spy shit to me. It turns out, the Secret Service is an organization of humans with ordinary lives and a relatively modest budget.
- AlotOfReading 2y agoThe SS can and does make that information available when necessary, for instance to private toll bridge operators. Waymo doesn't need significant advance notice either, just minutes for normal vehicles.
- nemo44x 2y ago[flagged]
- dyauspitr 2y agoHonestly, Waymo seems to be killing it. If this is what the growing pains look like it’s totally acceptable imo.
- johnboiles 2y agoTotally fine to give citations to driverless cars, but can we also start issuing citations to human drivers again too? Its pretty wild out there
- johnboiles 2y agoSee also this discussion on SFPD's citation data: https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/11nbnxw/san_francisco_traffic_citations_20142023/ https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/11nbnxw/san_f...
- paulddraper 2y agoFYI for anyone that doesn't drive, this happens with human drivers too. I helped push a drivered car out of an intersection Thursday.
- crazygringo 2y agoIt doesn't even say for how long. 5 minutes? 10 minutes? Especially since apparently a police officer was able to hop right in and drive it out of the way. I'm more curious why stalled Waymo's aren't being immediately detected by Waymo, and remote drivers/controllers aren't immediately manually addressing the situation. Or are they, and this would have been resolved in the next 5 minutes anyways?
- dawnerd 2y agoExactly, sounds like a publication trying to target two popular subjects
- dghlsakjg 2y agoIf you look at the footage it looks a lot like nothing material actually happened. There was a stuck Waymo at Mason and California near the Fairmont Hotel's main entrance on Mason. The VP was also stopping at the hotel's main entrance. From the footage it isn't even clear that the motorcade stopped, or was delayed by the Waymo since it was more or less at its destination.