Driverless Car Gets Stuck in Wet Concrete in San Francisco

DNYUZ ^ | 8/17/2023 | Staff

[simpson96]

Driverless vehicles promise a future with less congestion and pollution, fewer accidents resulting from human error and better mobility for people with disabilities, supporters say.

But every now and then, one of the cars runs into trouble in a way that casts a bit of doubt on that bold vision.

So it was on Tuesday in San Francisco, where a driverless car somehow drove into a city paving project and got stuck in wet concrete.

Paul Harvey, 74, a retired contractor who lives in the city’s Western Addition neighborhood, took a photo of the car with roof-mounted sensors, tipped slightly forward, its front wheels mired in the freshly poured concrete.

(snip)

The mishap on Tuesday involved a Cruise vehicle, according to city officials who said it was not clear how the car had ended up in concrete.

Rachel Gordon, a spokeswoman for the San Francisco Department of Public Works, said that the paving project on Golden Gate Avenue had been marked off with construction cones and that there were workers with flags at each end of the block.

“That portion of the road has to be repaved, at Cruise’s expense,” Ms. Gordon said. “Fortunately, no one was injured.”

Ms. Gordon said that city officials had been “voicing concerns” about the vehicles, which have driven onto fire hoses or “just stopped in the middle of the road.” She said that the city was willing to work with the companies but that “there’s still a lot of work to do, we believe.”

[Ezekiel]

You got right to the bottom of the situation from start to finish.

It began with a simple instruction, “Quicksend help”, and Cruise drove right to the scene of the slime.

Hardened criminals roam the streets in broad daylight, but this company’s anti-theft idea needs a little work.