Self-driving cars have flooded San Francisco’s streets, and not everyone is happy. Street activists have been using a low-tech solution to incapacitate the vehicles.

  • sab@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I couldn’t help but note the lack of figures of how unsafe driverless cars are, versus a regular car, per distance driven. And for that matter - how much that number had changed over recent years - because that’s the entire point of these tests, to make traffic safer.

    And when scooter companies flooded the sidewalks with electric scooters, people threw them into San Francisco Bay.

    Ah, that happened here as well. But we just call it vandalism.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    An anonymous activist group called Safe Street Rebel is responsible for this so-called coning incident and dozens of others over the past few months.

    The group’s goal is to incapacitate the driverless cars roaming San Francisco’s streets as a protest against the city being used as a testing ground for this emerging technology.

    She points out that when tech companies test their products in the city, residents don’t have much say in those decisions: “There’s been various iterations of this where it’s like, ‘Oh, yep, let’s try that out in San Francisco again,’ with very little input from anyone who lives here.”

    Safe Street Rebel has cataloged hundreds of near misses and blunders with Cruise and Waymo vehicles over the past few months — even without traffic cones.

    Those incidents include driving through yellow emergency tape, blocking firehouse driveways, running over fire hoses and refusing to move for first responders.

    “The traffic cone protest is an example of how things in the real world can really confound machines, even ones as sophisticated and finely tuned as this,” says Margaret O’Mara, a history professor at the University of Washington who studies the tech industry.


    The original article contains 1,091 words, the summary contains 193 words. Saved 82%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • fubo@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Didn’t this turn out to actually be a member of SF city government and his political staff?

    • stopthatgirl7@kbin.socialOP
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      1 year ago

      We have very different ideas of “old news,” and feel free to block me if you don’t like what I post instead of complaining on two different posts.

      • Foggyfroggy@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        This has been posted so many times, I see it at least once per week. Maybe you’re just new

        • stopthatgirl7@kbin.socialOP
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          1 year ago

          Check the date on the article.

          And “new.” Oh, that’s funny. Please, check my posting history to see how “just new” I am here.

          • angrystego@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            The date on the article means nothing, because the information had been published before in other news sources. This article just republished old news with a new date.
            I feel with you though, you didn’t know that.