Are robotaxis the future? Or instead, the past?
Are robotaxis the future? Or instead, the past?
Waymo is fortunate to have a better reputation than the rest, but their incident rate is still not acceptable…
KTLA reports that the California Teamsters union is pushing to get Waymo robotaxis off the streets due to them recently hitting and injuring a child and also going passed stopped school buses illegally.
TechCrunch reports that a Waymo struck and injured a child. Waymo falsely claims that their system is safer than a human driver in this situation. But the reality is that the Waymo vehicle was not even carrying a passenger. It was driving empty. If a vehicle is owned and operated by a person than it wouldn't have been making that trip in the first place, thus sparing the child from being hit.
TechCrunch reports that Waymo is under yet another investigation for violating traffic safety laws and passing by stopped school buses, some with children crossing the street. This investigation is by the National Transportation Safety Board. They do not actually regulate the Waymo robotaxis, but they are experts in conducting safety investigations.
SF Chronicle reports that parents continue to knowingly break California regulations and allow their kids to ride in Waymos unaccompanied. And Waymo doesn't seem to care in the least that they are regularly violating their state permit. What could possibly go wrong??
Fun!
Waymo does it again. A whole flotilla of them managed to block quite a large intersection. This occurred because they still do not "know" how to handle traffic signal outages.
SF Chronicle reports that Waymo continues to try to hide necessary safety related information about the extensive problems that occurred during the power blackout. They clearly are trying their best to not work with the regulators.
SF Chronicle reports on the buffonery that occurred between City Hall and Waymo during the recent power outage. Clearly neither the city nor Waymo was prepared for such a serious problem.
And it is definitely past time for Mayor Lurie to acknowledge that illegally allowing Waymos on car-free Market Street was a huge mistake on his part.
Waymo vehicle shows incredibly poor and dangerous driving as it gets stuck on a light rail track with a train approaching just behind it. The passenger wisely got the heck out of that vehicle. Another unhappy Waymo customer!
David Zipper reports in Bloomberg on how regardless of the debate of whether robotaxis are safer or not, there are definitely many better ways to improve traffic safety. Just look at cities that are already much safer.
NY Times reports on how Waymo continues to flaunt California regulations and allows unattended minors to ride in Waymos.
SF Chronicle reports that even more San Franciscans are going to be upset with Waymo now that they are regularly taking up public parking spaces.
The Telegraph reports that Waymos and other robotaxis will be coming to England. But also notes that some of their "supervisors" are located all the over in the Philippines. Sure hope nothing goes wrong (as it has many times in San Francisco)!
Waymo finally acknowledges that its vehicles are not autonomous and that they need human help when encountering complicated situations, such as traffic signals being out during a power outage. Yet they continue to mislead the public. The blackout caused the 5G cellular system that Waymo uses to go down, making human help impossible. The vehicles needing human help is an inherent and unfixable problem for the current Waymo driving system.
SF Standard reports on how the Waymo problem in San Francisco was due to both to traffic signals going out and Waymo's reliance on the cellular system to use actual humans when there are unusual problems. There will be hearings on both the culpability of PG&E and of Waymo.
