Mastodon MigrationNews: Waymo robot taxis fail to manage SF power outage causing widespread gridlock
https://missionlocal.org/2025/12/sf-waymo-halts-service-blackout/
The question we should be asking is what are the penalties for creating such a citywide menace?
It's early days, and there will certainly be some detailed analysis, but at this point it seems clear that these cars are too stupid to deal with widespread traffic lights being out. Unlike human drivers they do not know how to adapt to a non-standard situation. As a result we now have a situation where our public infrastructure is completely clogged in the event of a power outage. Is this acceptable? What dangers does this create? What happens when there are even more of them?
What if the blackout had been caused by a big earthquake, and a big fire ensued, and emergency services were unable to get anywhere because all the major intersections are clogged with brain dead Waymos.
Maria Langer | ๐๐ฅ๏ธ๐@mastodonmigration @rpmik I honestly don't know why this tech is allowed.
๐ถMark Nicoll 3.5%๐ด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ฅ๓ ฎ๓ ง๓ ฟ๐ฌ๐ง๐ช๐บ๐บ๐ณ@mlanger @mastodonmigration @rpmik
Simple. They are allowed because the people who make the decisions are profiting from it.
Simple. They are allowed because the people who make the decisions are profiting from it.
Ted@mlanger
Have you seen the human drivers in SF?
The real solution is better transit. We're using fancy tech to fix a solved problem. But for whatever reason America and especially California is somewhat anti public transit. (LA is at least improving there)
As an SF resident, these are much better than a lot of human drivers I encounter both as a pedestrian and as an occasional driver. (Not better than a good driver, better than bad drivers)
But I agree this failure mode is very not ok.