Recently, on a road in San Francisco, USA, a Cruise self-driving taxi of General Motors (GM) stopped in the midst of the road and will not move, drawing attention.

The vehicle was only resolved after the dispatch team arrived on the scene and manually reset the system.

What’s stopping cruise self-driving taxis from moving? It was a small warning register the form of an orange cone, commonly known as ‘Traffic Cone’.

When a traffic cone was placed on the hood of a self-driving taxi stopped on the road, the vehicle was completely deactivated and the engine turned off, turning on the emergency lights and forcibly switching to shutdown mode to attend for recovery. There was no other alternative scenario for this example, and artificial intelligence (AI) couldn’t actively reply to it, so the vehicle was stopped in the midst of the road.

Gizmodo recently announced that Secure Street Rebels, a bunch of protected street activists, won California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approval on July 13 for GM Cruise and Google Waymo’s expanded deployment of self-driving automotive services in San Francisco. They said they’re campaigning against it.

Secure Street protesters are a radical try to raise public awareness of the issues posed by self-driving taxis before the CPUC decides whether to permit Cruise and Waymo to expand their operations and expand 24/7 service in San Francisco. claimed to be a tactic. It’s explained that a traffic cone is installed on the hood to stop the vehicle and encourage others to hitch in.

Along with the many traffic problems reported by Waymo and Cruise self-driving taxis, the protesters identified that self-driving taxis are generating more automotive traffic than promoting walkable space or public transportation.

Waymo responded by saying, “Not only is there a misunderstanding of how self-driving cars work, it’s vandalism and encourages unsafe and disrespectful behavior on the road. We’ll notify law enforcement if our vehicles make unwanted or unsafe interference on public roads.”

“Cruise has provided free ride-hailing to late-night service employees without more reliable transportation options, delivered greater than 2 million meals to food insecure San Francisco, and recovered food waste from local businesses,” Cruise said. Deliberately obstructing vehicles risk disrupting these efforts and causing traffic congestion for local residents.”

To this point, there have been no deaths from self-driving cars in San Francisco, however the San Francisco Metropolitan Transit Authority (SFMTA) has advocated a phased introduction of the service, saying the variety of accidents involving self-driving taxis and Waymo vehicles has nearly doubled in recent months. “Self-driving taxis are nothing greater than passing a driver’s license test,” said SFMTA Director Geoffrey Tumlin.

There may be also data showing that from June to November of last yr, the accident rate for cruise vehicles was six times higher than the national average for human drivers. Nonetheless, opinions are divided as as to if self-driving taxis are causing more accidents.

The CPUC contends that the critics’ statistical evaluation shouldn’t be rigorous. In other words, systematic data that objectively analyzes the performance of self-driving cars ought to be used as a criterion for judgment. In response to comments that self-driving taxis impede emergency vehicle traffic and don’t interact properly, the CPUC is searching for evidence to support this claim.

Meanwhile, the CPCU postponed the hearing to August 10 to choose on the expansion of Cruise and Waymo’s robotaxi services.

Reporter Park Chan cpark@aitimes.com