Image credit: Chris Wensel / BBC
H/T LBC’s World of Woke
This wasn’t an isolated incident. The city’s fire department is not amused by errant no-go electric cars: ‘not ready for prime time’.
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A controversial driverless car firm was blasted after around 10 of its autonomous vehicles broke down and blocked a San Francisco street, reports the Daily Mail.
Just a day after securing the green light to flood the streets of the crime-ridden city with even more of its Chevy Bolts, ten of Cruise’s cars suffered WiFi failures which brought a street in the North Beach district to a stand-still.
The firm thinks a nearby music festival may have overloaded telecommunications networks.
A woman who filmed the drama could be heard claiming 10 of the hatchbacks had stopped.
Six were visible in footage she shared online, blocking the intersection of Grant Avenue and Vallejo Street, KRON reported.
A spokesperson from Cruise attributed the unexpected stoppage to ‘wireless connectivity issues’ stemming from the commencement of Outside Lands, a three-day music festival.
They didn’t explain further, although big events are known to cause network connection problems as telecoms companies buckle under the weight of a sudden spike in local usage.
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The San Francisco Fire Department also voiced its strong disagreement with the expansion, pointing out the potential dangers and disruptions caused by the vehicles on local streets.
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‘The San Francisco Fire Department is not against modernization and new technologies but, any vehicle that endangers the people of the City and puts its visitors in danger and would put its passengers between a fire engine and a fire is not ready for prime time,’ the statement concluded.
Full report here.
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
It sounds as if it would be a good idea for the police to impound those cars and fine the company a few thousand dollars to get each one back. I they kept that up the company would soon be bankrupt and the problem would be solved.
Not California’s only wi-fi issue…
California wildfires can bring internet outages. Some want networks to be tougher
Sep. 30, 2020
Fires can bring down utility poles, damage fiber-optic cables and cut off power, which internet networks depend on. With evacuation orders and other emergency communications dependent on online communication, the latest wildfires highlight the urgent need for more resilient connections as more fires have raged through Northern California.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/California-wildfires-can-bring-internet-outages-15610411.php
My grand dad was a sometimes drunk. Much like tam o’shanter, when he went to market , he would stay and drink with his peers. Then, he would fall into the back of the wagon and the horse would take him back to the barn while granddad slept.
If there were a self driving car as smart and capable as granddad’s horse—I’m in.
[…] Road to nowhere: San Francisco driverless cars cause street blockage chaos ‘due to nearby musi… […]
Getting worse…
World’s biggest driverless car experiment goes haywire
A spate of incidents in San Francisco has put the brakes on the robotaxi revolution
22 August 2023
Over the weekend, San Francisco’s Department of Motor Vehicles demanded that Cruise, a subsidiary of General Motors, reduce its fleet by 50pc after a crash with a fire engine. The decision took around 150 cars off the road. However, some want to go further: now, local politicians are seeking the reversal of the experiment before it had truly got going.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/08/21/driverless-car-robotaxi-cruise-cut-fleet-collision/
In another incident:
One of the company’s cars became stuck after driving into wet cement, apparently ignoring the cones marking the area off. It was forced to pay for the road to be repaved after the vehicle was recovered.
. . .
“Driving into concrete is not the end of the world. And people do it all the time. But if your narrative is that we’ll be perfect and humans are terrible, you just eviscerated your narrative.”
I cannot imagine why the company that owns the cars allowed them to have a public network, especially wifi, used for control. They should have a separate licenced frequency. Then any interference would be the responsibilty of the person causing the interference. Gaol time would result if it persisted.