Self-driving cars.  OK, let’s get real particular- self-driving taxis are going to  the norm in San Francisco.

The state (California Public Utilities Commission)  has approved both Waymo and Cruise (Google and GM subsidiaries, respectively) to offer taxi service,7  days a week, 24 hours a day. (You should know that that California has two separate agencies that regulate this practice- there’s also the California Department of Motor Vehicles, which has not joined thé discussion.)

You should know that the regulations no longer demand that each taxi (at least for now)  still have a human present to supervise the actions of the driverless vehicle.  (After all, there have been no less than 236 collisions between the autonomous vehicles since 2019.)

(This was not a simple rubber stamp though; the meeting lasted 7 hours and the vote was 3 to 1 in favor of the expansion.  And, Aaron Peskin, President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors plans to demand a rehearing (and litigation against the commission).)

Interestingly, the denizens of San Francisco were bemoaning these taxis and were hoping there would not be an expansion.  They cite the chaos these two ventures have brought the city.  That involves both traffic jams and disruption of emergency vehicle traffic.  There have been incidences where the Fire Department was impeded by that traffic at least 55 times this calendar year.   (As a matter of fact, last Thursday- the 17th of August- a Cruise taxi hit a fire truck!)

In response, GM (the owner  of Cruise) has halved the census of its fleet.  it now stands at 50 during daylight hours and 150  during night time operations.

On a related issue,  the California legislature is considering the requirement of  one human in every driverless truck for the next five years.

You can bet that the incidents of last Friday are going to create even more problems.  It seems that 10 Cruise driverless cabs stopped working in North Beach.  (It was a wireless connectivity issue.)  That led to traffic backups in the area.

It is interesting that no approvals have been forthcoming for the LA or Santa Barbara areas.   LA officials believe there is insufficient data to demonstrate that the vehicles are safe.  (Jarvis Murray, the LA County Transportation Administrator feels strongly about that.)

Looks like there will be more news about this situation soon enough.