This Was Foreseeable, but What’s the Money in That?

It turns out that we have found yet another risk arising from the self-driving cars scam, no consideration has been made for dealing with emergency first responders.

This is not a surprise.  The companies unsuccessfully developing this technology can't even handle the most basic of highway interactions, and it literally has cops setting off smoke grenades in San Francisco:

The self-driving future has arrived in San Francisco. And, increasingly and all too often, it looks like a confounded cop, road flare in hand, commanding a wayward autonomous vehicle as if it were a misbehaving, two-ton puppy.

“No!” shouts the cop, as captured in his body-worn camera footage. “You stay!”

The incident occurred on Feb. 9, during one of San Francisco’s more memorable recent emergencies: A dollar-store Walter White apparently lost control of his Sunset District garage dope factory, resulting in a lethal explosion and fire. The normally sedate neighborhood in the vicinity of 21st Avenue and Noriega Street was instantly transformed into both a disaster scene and a crime scene.

And, to make it a truly San Francisco scene, a driverless Waymo vehicle subsequently proceeded to meander into the middle of things, like an autonomous Mr. Magoo.

“It doesn’t know what to do!” shouts an officer caught in the background of the body-worn camera footage. “I’ll pop a flare!” responds the cop wearing the camera. “There’ll be hella smoke in the front.”

He then commands the vehicle to “stay,” and places a flare in front of it. But it does not obey, hella smoke and all (“ah, f%$#!”).

(%$# mine)

………

The “great relationship” part is probably true; fire officials who’ve worked with the autonomous vehicle companies had nice things to say about their representatives. But not about their vehicles.

“They’ve made every effort to work with us in public safety measures and be a good partner,” said one. “But they do not have a good product.”

"They do not have a good product."

There is no possibility of their having a good product in the near (or dsistant) future.

Allowing these folks to do beta alpha testing on the streets of San Francisco is negligent, and they are a public hazard and a public nuisance.