"This is how we all SABOTAGE!" - Public Enemy 😎

"One campaign has even gotten the attention of the BBC, the so-called “#coning” of #driverlesscars in San Francisco, which conveniently leads them to stop without harming them. https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/08/technotage-on-the-rise-more-efforts-to-stymie-job-threatening-sometimes-hazardous-innovations.html #Technotage

Worried residents of #SanFrancisco are immobilising #driverless taxis them by putting traffic #cones on them. That seems a very #Glasgow form of #protest!
#DriverlessCars
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-66611513

Thanks for the tip NPR!

😎"All it takes to render the technology-packed self-driving car inoperable is a traffic cone."😎

"An anonymous activist group called Safe Street Rebel is responsible for this so-called coning incident and dozens of others over the past few months. The group's goal is to incapacitate the #driverlesscars roaming San Francisco's streets as a protest against the city being used as a testing ground for this emerging technology."
https://www.npr.org/2023/08/26/1195695051/driverless-cars-san-francisco-waymo-cruise

#California #SanFrancisco #DriverlessCars #Cruise #Waymo #AVs: "For the time being, San Francisco residents are in suspense. Cruise’s and Waymo’s driverless cars will compete with medallion taxis and Uber and Lyft. They will likely contribute to congestion, and continue to have near-misses and close calls with cyclists, pedestrians, and other vehicles. To date, there have been about five hundred driverless cars in San Francisco, and they already feel ubiquitous; it’s easy to imagine more of them scrolling up and down the city’s streets. At around eleven o’clock on the night after the C.P.U.C. vote, videos of a traffic jam in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood began circulating on X, the social-media platform formerly known as Twitter. North Beach is an older neighborhood with many narrow one-way streets, often crowded with people visiting restaurants, bars, and strip clubs. The videos showed at least six driverless Cruise cars stalled at an intersection, creating a cluttered, chaotic snarl. The delays, a spokesperson later explained on X, were caused by a wireless-connectivity issue, created by Outside Lands, a large music festival that was happening on the other side of the city. After fifteen minutes, the cars re-started. (The San Francisco Examiner later reported that the jam was actually caused by a pedestrian who intentionally interfered with one of Cruise’s robo-taxis.) On Thursday night, a driverless Cruise car, carrying a passenger, collided with a fire truck. “One of our cars entered the intersection on a green light and was struck by an emergency vehicle that appeared to be en route to an emergency scene,” a statement from Cruise, posted to the company’s corporate X account, read, raising the possibility that the A.V. did not yield to the emergency vehicle, as a human driver likely would have. “We are investigating to better understand our AVs performance, and will be in touch with the City of San Francisco about the event.”"
https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-silicon-valley/robo-taxis-are-legal-now

I think we need a new hashtag, #PotentialPassenger, to discuss a wide range of topics related to driverless cars, robotaxis, robobusses, and ADAS, etc.

I'm a driver, an above average one if I may boast a little, and I don't plan to give up driving and the associated mobility / freedom any time soon.

On the other hand, advancement in technology does make other options become attractive over time. For example, robotaxis will be an interesting option when I fly to another city, which can save me the time needed to rent a car, figure out parking, etc.

I took a quick look at a few existing hashtags, such as #Robotaxi, #DriverlessCars, and saw a number of emotionally-charge posts, in addition to some calm discussions. I hope #PotentialPassenger will be a forum for data-based discussions on when / where / how I or you want to change my or your role from a driver to a passenger.

Are you interested?

#PotentialPassenger

"Cruise vehicle gets stuck in wet concrete while driving in San Francisco."

"It thinks it’s a road and it ain’t because it ain’t got a brain and it can’t tell that it’s freshly poured concrete."

#technology #tech #autonomousvehicles #driverlesscars #selfdrivingcars #Cruise

https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/cruise-stuck-wet-concrete-sf-18297946.php?mc_cid=87e153a981&mc_eid=08b09b9628

Driverless cars are…well, stupid.
#SanFrancisco #DriverlessCars
#Taxis

https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/outside-lands-cruise-vehicles-backup-18293898.php

I swore at it, not that it did any good. Not having better sensory equipment to detect a rider with a front light and a flashing light on my helmet is a complete dealbreaker. Cars with drivers are dangerous but at least there’s a chance the human will see you and make the right judgement call. #driverlesscars are a danger, period. I don’t want my city filled with cars, let alone driverless ones. /2

#DriverlessCars with no passengers are driving around San Francisco with no passengers so they don't have to pay for parking. #Technology with no purpose
https://mastodon.social/@docpop/110851628616645098

A Genuine Banger ! "I Got Hit By A #robotaxi !" https://youtu.be/NQSA-ClD4Co
#DriverlessCars #Waymo #SanFrancisco #Lyft #Uber #Pedestrians #Cruise

#SiliconValley #BigTech #Transportation #Mobility #AVs #DriverlessCars #Surveillance: "Today, there are some driverless cars roaming the streets of a few cities around the country, but, at least in San Francisco, they’re getting plenty of bad reviews. Vehicles from companies like Waymo and Cruise have a reputation for blocking traffic and getting in the way of emergency vehicles, to the point that local officials want them out of the city altogether. Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s Boring Company, which was spun off from SpaceX in 2018, made some big promises of its own, but has thus far built little more than an amusement ride in Las Vegas. Uber scrapped its plans for networks of flying cars, and startups devoted to the Hyperloop, a proposed method of high-speed intercity transport, are dropping dead as higher interest rates choke off their access to capital—investors know they’ll never deliver.

Tech billionaires don’t have a great track record when it comes to fixing our transportation system—but we keep giving them second chances. For 15 years, we’ve waited for Silicon Valley to solve the problems on our roads, and it’s continually failed to deliver. Instead, tech companies have kept us trapped in our cars by distracting us from investments in improved transit and other transport options. Now, we’re letting them load our vehicles with new technologies so they can get their own cut of the profits made from our dependence on automobiles—by scraping our data, forcing subscriptions into our cars, and using drivers as guinea pigs to test new tech." https://newrepublic.com/article/174089/big-tech-watching-drive

The #techbros of #SiliconValley have been promising to solve #America's #transport problems for years, with #DriverlessCars and #hyperloop. So far, all Americans have got are cars that track where you go, and real world transport getting worse
https://newrepublic.com/article/174089/big-tech-watching-drive

#driverlessCars

"The group got the idea for the conings by chance. The person claims a few of them walking together one night saw a cone on the hood of an AV, which appeared disabled…[T]hey found that a cone on a hood renders the vehicles little more than a multi-ton hunk of useless metal. The group suspects the cone partially blocks the LIDAR detectors on the roof of the car, in much the same way that a human driver wouldn’t be able to safely drive with a cone on the hood. But there is no human inside to get out and simply remove the cone, so the car is stuck." https://onefoottsunami.com/2023/07/11/the-week-of-cone/

Opinion: Driverless cars are driving San Francisco crazy -- MarketWatch https://www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/driverless-cars-are-driving-san-francisco-crazy-they-are-not-ready-for-prime-time-1264cd87 #Traffic #DriverlessCars #Problems

#Musk's #DriverlessCars have so far killed at least 17 people in the US. Using public streets to test this pointless #technology is unconscionable. Victims and their families should sue him for everything
#AutonomousVehicles #transport #cars
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/10/tesla-autopilot-crashes-elon-musk/

#Driverlesscars: #Researcher disguises himself as #car #seat in study

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-65857348

#Tesla #Autopilot #DriverlessCars: "The crash in North Carolina’s Halifax County, where a futuristic technology came barreling down a rural highway with devastating consequences, was one of 736 U.S. crashes since 2019 involving Teslas in Autopilot mode — far more than previously reported, according to a Washington Post analysis of National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data. The number of such crashes has surged over the past four years, the data shows, reflecting the hazards associated with increasingly widespread use of Tesla’s futuristic driver-assistance technology as well as the growing presence of the cars on the nation’s roadways.

The number of deaths and serious injuries associated with Autopilot also has grown significantly, the data shows. When authorities first released a partial accounting of accidents involving Autopilot in June 2022, they counted only three deaths definitively linked to the technology. The most recent data includes at least 17 fatal incidents, 11 of them since last May, and five serious injuries."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/10/tesla-autopilot-crashes-elon-musk/

Oh...
#DriverlessCars #AutonomousVehicles #PointlessTech
https://journa.host/@w7voa/110520443457508943
w7voa@journa.host - #Tesla ‘Autopilot’ has been involved in far more crashes than previously reported. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/10/tesla-autopilot-crashes-elon-musk/

DesignBoom : 3D printable driverless car with three wheels cruises on the road using voice commands https://www.designboom.com/technology/3d-print-driverless-car-three-wheels-voice-command-nila-ai-06-01-2023/ #artificialintelligence #electricautomobiles #driverlesscars #technology #carconcept #cardesign

@coolgrey #DriverlessCars

DriverlessCars are still not ready for prime time and probablly never will be in a congested city like SF.

I'd never get into 1. I'd rather walk the 7 miles across town instead.