Concert-goers left San Francisco’s Outside Lands Music Festival Friday bracing for unhealthy site visitors, not knowning a gaggle of Cruise robotaxis would make the mess a lot, a lot worse.
The snarl occurred simply after 11 p.m. on two slim streets— Vallejo Street and Grant Avenue—the place they cross with Columbus Avenue in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood. Social media posts of the occasion present as much as ten driverless taxis scattered haphazardly throughout site visitors.
NBC Bay Area studies that the driverless automobiles have been stranded for quarter-hour on account of bandwidth points:
Cruise informed NBC Bay Area on Saturday that it was affected by wi-fi connectivity points, which brought on delays to automobiles. It added it’s working to ensure it doesn’t occur once more.
This site visitors jam coincided with San Francisco’s Outside Lands Music Festival which is occurring about 4 miles away at Golden Gate Park.
On the social media platform X on Saturday, Cruise mentioned {that a} “large festival posed wireless bandwidth constraints causing delayed connectivity to our vehicles.”
I imply, who may have predicted a big crowd of individuals at a live performance could be utilizing their telephones to add grainy video nobody will ever watch. It’s not like that’s been occurring since cellphones gained web or something. This irritating incident comes the day after Cruise and Waymo have been cleared by the California Public Utilities Commission to not solely broaden their working occasions and protection, however to begin charging for rides as properly. San Francisco residents and management aren’t proud of the state of affairs.
“Other than being an inconvenience, it’s dangerous,” mentioned San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, who mentioned he instantly obtained complaints from his constituents concerning the robotaxi jam.
[…]
“There was just a total meltdown,” mentioned Peskin of the incident Friday, “which shows that San Francisco’s government that petitioned for an incremental approach —that we’re right.”
“These things are not ready for prime time,” Peskin mentioned of the autonomous autos.
He additionally mentioned the notion that wi-fi points brought on this backup “is scary as heck if you think about the fact that moving these vehicles out of traffic requires cell service.”
Peskin worries about what would occur if a pure catastrophe, for instance, knocked out cell service. He referred to autonomous autos as “amazing devices,” however is among the many native leaders arguing that “they should not be expanded until the technology has been worked out.”
Cruise says it’s investigating the lack of connection, NBC studies, to stop it from occurring once more. But nearly precisely a yr in the past, round 60 Cruise autos blocked site visitors throughout San Fransisco for a similar cause—lack of connection to important server.
Both Waymo and Cruise have had issues retaining automobiles transferring on the street safely. Two Waymo robotaxis just lately blocked site visitors throughout each a delight parade and a baseball sport. A Waymo taxi even killed a canine after recognizing a canine was within the automobile’s path. And in terms of emergency autos, each self-driving automotive taxis are inclined to freeze or drive proper by means of energetic emergencies, the place a human drive would be capable to negotiate the state of affairs.
Source: jalopnik.com