This is your city on driverless cars.

A blackout in San Francisco yesterday cut power to traffic lights. Drivers coped; Waymos just stopped moving, often in intersections, stranding passengers and compounding gridlock.

https://sfstandard.com/2025/12/20/waymo-sf-blackout-robotaxi-traffic-jams/

Maybe allowing a private company to flood public space with a massive fleet of unmanned vehicles isn't great transportation policy. (Especially when shit happens. And shit *always* happens.)
On the other hand, we could just let the "disruptors" do exactly what they want. That usually works out fine.

The fact that driverless cars kill + injure fewer people than conventional cars is a genuine plus.

It doesn't outweigh minus of private companies flooding public streets with constantly cruising vehicles that periodically cause gridlock, chaos.

Here's one Waymo messing up dozens of people's day.

There should be zero tolerance for interfering with public transport like this. Any sane community would recognize this as indefensible.

And driverless cars have killed and injured people. (More than we are told about, that's for sure.) What would you do if a Robo-taxi ran over someone you loved? How could you ever find closure?

https://www.highspeed.blog/if-a-robotaxi-ran-over/

@straphanger Closure of the company that operates those vehicles sounds like a good solution.

Eine gute Frage, denn die Betreiber werden sich rausreden und am Ende stehen AngehΓΆrige mit nichts da, im schlimmsten Fall wird ihnen nicht einmal geglaubt, dass es ein autonomes Fahrzeug war.

Eine andere Frage ist, wenn der Traum von Autobahnen Fahrzeugen funktioniert und zwar so wie es verkauft wird, dass die Fahrzeuge nie still stehen und permanent rumfahren, dann ist das zwar effizienter als Autos zur Zeit, bedeutet im umkehrschluss aber auch das StÀdte noch Auto zentrischer werden. Denn Betreiber werden Gründe finden, warum FußgÀngerüberwege jeglicher Art den effizienzsfluss stâren und diese Kisten werden permanent 24/7 umerfahren. Es wird keinen Platz oder Zeit geben. Um den Strom an Autos zu durchbrechen. Autos sind das Problem an sich.
@straphanger

@straphanger I would not feel any better if the driver was a person.
The only relevant question is whether driverless cars are more dangerous than human-driven ones, and it is still open.