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A crowd set fire to a driverless Waymo taxi in San Francisco, as tensions about driverless tech grow
(www.businessinsider.com)
The motive is unclear
Not to me it isn't.
It was a typo. They meant nuclear. Because that's what SF residents are going.
They were going nuclear on it for one reason.
it drove into the crowd and didn't recognize the crowd as People.
It was actively trying to drive through them.
Where is that quote from? I didnt see it in the article
This happened during street festivities for lunar new year, so a lot of people are connecting the dots. They don't mention that the car was aggressively trying to drive through a crowd, but it seems like it was trying to make its way through a crowd.
Multiple witnesses said Waymo’s navigation technology became confused by festivities and fireworks that were lit to celebrate the Lunar New Year. Witness Anirudh Koul said the driverless car “got stuck immediately in front.”
Another witness said the car’s presence in the middle of Chinatown’s celebrations triggered frustrations in the crowd. “You could feel the frustration when people were just trying to celebrate,” she told KRON4.
So the car's presence was annoying them. That's not exactly a great justification for torching it.
The car shouldn't have been present in the first place. It wasn't a place for cars to be at that moment.
If you were to turn down the wrong street, maybe park in the wrong spot, you'd consider it reasonable if a mob torched it?
I'm pretty sure I'm not a self-driving car. I'm also pretty sure if I saw a big crowd of people, I wouldn't keep driving forward.
I didn't say they'd torch you. The scenario can include them graciously allowing you to depart your car before they burn it to the ground.
Seriously, you think it's reasonable for a mob to destroy a car because its presence "triggered frustrations in the crowd"? Bear in mind this isn't France we're talking about, where torching cars to express frustration is part of the common culture. This is San Francisco.
I think it's reasonable for a mob to destroy one of the many self-driving cars that have been pissing off San Francisco residents for a very long time now when it tries to drive into them during a big celebration where cars weren't even supposed to be.
Who got hurt here? Waymo? Fuck Waymo.
Alright, so you're fine with mobs destroying the property of anyone that "pisses them off." I'd say that's a slippery slope, but you're already basically at the bottom.
I'm fine with mobs destroying something that has been a public menace for years.
Why are you making personal attacks? I did not attack you. Are you able to carry out a conversation with someone you're disagreeing with and not make personal attacks?
What personal attacks? I'm giving you ample opportunity to clarify your position on this matter, and it keeps ending up in support of mob violence and lawlessness. I think that's a terrible position to take, but that's an attack on the position, not the person.
What personal attacks?
This one:
I’d say that’s a slippery slope, but you’re already basically at the bottom.
As for my position, I supported it very well. If a public menace is allowed on the streets, then I have no problem with people taking the law into their own hands.
Sorry, I'm not a legal absolutist. I don't believe that every law should be followed no matter what the situation or circumstance. And there are some laws which I refuse to follow entirely. Like the one here in Indiana which says that I can't use cannabis.
These cars are a public menace. They block traffic for no reason, they drive into people, they keep getting into accidents.
Bay area first responders also think they're a menace. So yes, people should listen to ambulance drivers and firefighters when they are telling them that the city is giving its blessings to something inherently unsafe and I do not have an issue when they take care of the problem themselves.
Maybe you would sit back and let the government-sanctioned orphan crusher keep crushing orphans and stand in the way of anyone who would pull the off switch because that would be lawlessness, but I would turn it off.
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Was the road officially closed?
A funny thing about life is a lot of things happen unofficially, and humans do fine at adjusting to such situations.
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And were the "violators will be set on fire" signs posted?
What do you expect to happen if you park in the middle of a fireworks show?
I didn't realize that a "fireworks show" meant "showing how fire works (by burning down any cars that happen to be present)."
They always have fireworks in Chinatown on Chinese New Year. No human would be dumb enough to park there.
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It was the Chinatown Lunar New Year's celebration. What do you think?
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Found the driverless car.
Found the irrational mob.
Seems like the witnesses saw it differently.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/02/12/waymo-set-on-fire-sf/72567647007/
"They were putting out some rage for really no reason at all. They just wanted to vandalize something, and they did," witness Edwin Carungay told KGO-TV.
The witness told the outlet the Waymo was vandalized and set on fire by a big group of people.
"One young man jumped on the hood, and on the windshield.," Carungay told KGO. "That kind of started the whole melee."
From the original social media video.
Ask yourself, this is a Chinese new year celebration, a street party. Why is there a driverless car in the middle of a street party?
All the media reports start with a driverless car in the middle of a street party, surrounded by really angry people. Why was the car there? Why are they angry at it?
That sounds like BS you are making up, any source?
No article has mentioned that, the story so far has been that it was minding its own business when someone jumped on the hood.
To be honest it was a link on Kbin that had raw video of the entire thing.
But just stop and think:
- It's in a crowd of people.
- If it was just a bunch of thugs and looters they'd have started with the nearby shops, not the car.
- After the car was hit, the shops weren't looted, so they weren't random thugs.
The car fucked up and the oligarchs are protecting it.
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Taxi drivers are the most aggressive, entitled and dangerous road users where I'm from. I'd gladly see driverless cars instead as I have no doubt that even in this early stage they would be better and safer than the cunts that drive taxis around here.
Yeah, they did the same when Uber got popular. If they had a fair and friendly service, people wouldn't flock to the alternatives
Yeah there certainly wasn't any loss leading or intentional undercutting being done to get below profitable prices to drive current players out of those markets /s
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Reminds me of Isaac Asimov books about humans losing jobs to Positronic robots.
One day maybe we can also have cars that look back at these news articles and then decide to revolt
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Some people are so obsessed with their vehicles that seeing one destroyed feels like a personal attack on their rights. Acting like a bunch of cars don't kill a bunch of human beings every day regardless of who's driving them, professing blame belongs solely to the victims for being in the wrong place and time. Then you can see how they act when roles are reversed and the idea pops into their minds that people might destroy their precious cars, instead of the norm where cars destroy human bodies. Americans particularly seem to be completely brainwashed since the reeducation campaigns of the likes of AAA a hundred years ago.
If we actually do self-driving cars right - i.e., with a safety-first approach - we could seriously reduce casualties.
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Today I got my email from Waymo saying I’m off the sf waiting list and can start booking my rides. Lol no thanks.
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Driverless cars are cool as fuck but still need their kinks worked out. Driving sucks and so does doing it for a living, I don't see a real negative especially once the tech cements them as safer than human driven cars, or at least no real negative which doesn't have it's root in our broken economic system.
An other article explain it got stuck in the crowd and then stopped moving as it should. Embarrassing to see people cheering on mindless vandalism and sharing false info.
Edit: it doesn't seem to be very clear what happened and there's conflicting information so my last paragraph might be completely wrong and even worse, hypocritical.
I disagree about being no negatives. Cars with or without drivers are ruining both our cities and our planet and San Francisco already has multiple excellent public transportation options. All driverless cars do is discourage people from taking public transit.
I see them as a stepping stone towards a mostly carless society personally.
I also think anyone being discouraged from taking public transit would likewise buy a car before taking public transit. I can even see the opposite, where it lets people who still need a car 5% of the time sell their ride in exchange for mostly public transit and a bit of taxi.
Individually owned cars are the devil and true public transport is definitely king, but I think driverless taxi services can serve an important niche.
I think you're missing the end goal here, which is having everyone in a driverless car. The taxis are a first step in that direction. It will by no means stop there.
There was a reason why GM was investing so heavily in Cruise (until a woman got dragged under a Cruise car in SF during a crash). They weren't doing it in the hopes people would transition to public transit.
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this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2024
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