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San Francisco fire chief fed up with robotaxis that mess with her firetrucks

latimes.com

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Re: San Francisco fire chief fed up with robotaxis that mess with her firetrucks

#101

Post by Gordonjcp »

Projectiboga wrote: post #60
rurp wrote: post #20

The specific examples listed out in the article are egregious, causing real harm. The fire chief is right to be angry, if anything her response is too measured. From the article: - Running through yellow emergency tape and ignoring warning signs to enter a street strewn with storm-damaged electrical wires, then driving past emergency vehicles with some of those wires snarled around rooftop lidar sensors. - Twice bloc…

Time for Zero Tolerance, if one of these do it seize it, and levy the robotaxi company and whomever built it with Huge Fines. Not "oh that will just be another expense", make it that those fines pierce the corporate veil and get to the executives and the millionaire shareholders. And now that I think of it, if there are any passengers, arrest them. That way they can sue the RoboTaxi company too.

You've got hydraulic cutters on board.

If a robotaxi gets in the way of your fire appliance, chop it up.

Re: San Francisco fire chief fed up with robotaxis that mess with her firetrucks

#102

Post by SllX »

Sharlin wrote: post #33
dopylitty wrote: post #24

It’s absolutely insane that automated driving is allowed on public streets. It should be completely banned until such time as there exists a comprehensive testing regime for validating that the automated system functions in all the scenarios it might be expected to face including emergency vehicles, construction, pedestrians, bad weather, and damaged sensors.

To be fair, human drivers are not validated either to function correctly in those scenarios. Though it would certainly be nice if they were.

Individual humans can be arrested. The exact people found in violation can be held accountable on the spot in a manner that is proportionate and scales to exactly the responsible parties.

What are you supposed to do with a car with no humans around causing a problem for people? Key it? Break the windshield? Wait around for a tow truck to move it? Revoke an entire fleet’s license to drive in the State of California over a specific incident in San Francisco? Or wait until the fleet has tallied up enough incidents for the State to say “that’s enough”?

We probably do have to validate driverless vehicles to a higher standard than the average driver, and maybe a higher standard than the best drivers. We want correctness and accountability, because driverless or manned, an automobile mishandled is a death trap.

EDIT: How about this? The State can pass a law that gives immunity to anyone who breaks into a misbehaving unmanned autonomous car in order to disable the autonomy and take control of it and move it out of the way. No, I wouldn’t limit this to emergency personnel either. Anyone with a Driver’s License can do it. Cruise and Waymo can then decide whether to make this process easier or they can replace a lot of broken windows.

Re: San Francisco fire chief fed up with robotaxis that mess with her firetrucks

#103

Post by JoeAltmaier »

Sharlin wrote: post #33
dopylitty wrote: post #24

It’s absolutely insane that automated driving is allowed on public streets. It should be completely banned until such time as there exists a comprehensive testing regime for validating that the automated system functions in all the scenarios it might be expected to face including emergency vehicles, construction, pedestrians, bad weather, and damaged sensors.

To be fair, human drivers are not validated either to function correctly in those scenarios. Though it would certainly be nice if they were.

A human operator can be yelled at and made to leave. They don't become an unresponsive lump of metal blocking the road when stymied by emergency vehicle activity.

Re: San Francisco fire chief fed up with robotaxis that mess with her firetrucks

#104

Post by Gordonjcp »

whartung wrote: post #58
rurp wrote: post #20

The specific examples listed out in the article are egregious, causing real harm. The fire chief is right to be angry, if anything her response is too measured. From the article: - Running through yellow emergency tape and ignoring warning signs to enter a street strewn with storm-damaged electrical wires, then driving past emergency vehicles with some of those wires snarled around rooftop lidar sensors. - Twice bloc…

There's that scene from a TV show where the fire fighters are at a fire, and a car is in front of the fire hydrant. One of the characters calls out "Car!" and they then proceed to smash the windows, and route the fire hose through the car and connect it to the fire hydrant. Throughout the course of the incident, the hydrant leaks and fills the cars interior with water. If only there was, perhaps, a similar effective,…

https://lukas.com/en/

Re: San Francisco fire chief fed up with robotaxis that mess with her firetrucks

#105

Post by JoeAltmaier »

shagie wrote: post #54
kindatrue wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damn that's rough. I saw a car parked in front a fire hydrant at a fire in Queens once. FDNY simply smashed the windows to open the doors, and then ran a hose through it.

As an aside, the "why not over, under, or around?" question that gets asked. https://www.firehouse.com/operations-training/hoselines-wate... That has some "how much pressure can be loss to friction and still provide the necessary water rate at the other end." Bends in the hose will increase the amount of friction and thus reduce the flow rate.

To make their objection clear, of course. Nobody will do that twice.

Re: San Francisco fire chief fed up with robotaxis that mess with her firetrucks

#106

Post by maerF0x0 »

7952 wrote: post #92
maerF0x0 wrote: post #50

Seems to me a simple regulation like a fire department access in buildings could solve this. eg1: What about a direct line to a 24/7 operations center with cruise? eg2: Or how about a proximal access console controller that allows them to take control of the the vehicle (with occupants consent if occupied) . This neednt be a total ban on AVs

That seems like a solution in an emergency, but these kind of interactions must happen all the time. And it is part of a wider problem where the baseline data about the world changes and not communicated in a standardised way. It could be a fire truck, road closure for cycling event, tornado ripping through a town, a terrorist attack, a secret service motorcade, oil on the road, anything. And dealing with those situa…

> It could be a fire truck, road closure for cycling event, tornado ripping through a town, a terrorist attack, a secret service motorcade, oil on the road, anything.

Some of these are likely just a lack of training data.

However, I agree that there needs to be a better self awareness of "Cruise has insufficient training data about this exact situation, now we fall back into a safer discovery mode, where we make reasonable guesses and also ask for the help of an operator"

Re: San Francisco fire chief fed up with robotaxis that mess with her firetrucks

#107

Post by jeffbee »

CoffeeOnWrite wrote: post #87
jeffbee wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did they signal? This has happened to me many times with humans driving right up on my bumper even while I signal and am in reverse gear.

What’s your angle here? In practice humans frequently neglect to signal in instances where it is legally required (I don’t know if it is strictly legally required in California when parallel parking, but it’s certainly good common sense). Human drivers know that people don’t signal and account for that. In this particular scenario the reverse lights would be a crystal clear indication of the driver’s intent, even if…

Just wondering because it's not always apparent that a car is slowing to park parallel, especially if they don't signal. The only way I know to make it really clear is to stop alongside the open spot, signal, move ahead slowly and put it in reverse, but half the time humans still don't get the message.

Re: San Francisco fire chief fed up with robotaxis that mess with her firetrucks

#108

Post by kotaKat »

koolba wrote: post #78
Projectiboga wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time for Zero Tolerance, if one of these do it seize it, and levy the robotaxi company and whomever built it with Huge Fines. Not "oh that will just be another expense", make it that those fines pierce the corporate veil and get to the executives and the millionaire shareholders. And now that I think of it, if there are any passengers, arrest them. That way they can sue the RoboTaxi company too.

Cheaper and more effective to simply add some ram bars to the fire trucks.

They're already well capable of ramming vehicles with their current bumpers, they're just too scared to do it.

Montreal has no qualms going for it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCT74Szg_sA

Re: San Francisco fire chief fed up with robotaxis that mess with her firetrucks

#109

Post by srj »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #50

Seems to me a simple regulation like a fire department access in buildings could solve this. eg1: What about a direct line to a 24/7 operations center with cruise? eg2: Or how about a proximal access console controller that allows them to take control of the the vehicle (with occupants consent if occupied) . This neednt be a total ban on AVs

The time it would take to pull out a phone and call a Cruise support line is already too long.

Re: San Francisco fire chief fed up with robotaxis that mess with her firetrucks

#110

Post by masswerk »

jeffbee wrote: post #49
tmpz22 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were experiencing a severe emergency and received delayed care as a result of a self-driving car misbehaving - would you feel the same way? As you lay there bleeding out would you think "I have contributed to human progress - this is good" I believe there are ways to advance self-driving without these problems. Why can't they have a 1800 number staffed 24/7 for fire departments to contact?

Internally your logic is flawless but I don't see how you can ignore the current delays caused by human driver traffic, not to mention the ambulance traffic created by human driver errors.

Please mind that this is about fire fighting. There is reason, why they have the right of way, as this exceeds any individual concerns: would you really rather have another Great Fire, as a single car blocks critical efforts in the name of progress? Also, as it comes to emergencies, there's a certain difference between a human idiot, who can be always coerced into doing the right thing, and a dumb, but inflexible mechanism.
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