San Franciscoisco is known for its fog. Dense, low-altitude steam can make visibility difficult, especially behind the wheel. Now, it appears driverless vehicles are experiencing the same problem — with five cars from Waymo’s fleet covered in fog this morning.
In case you lost it:
Year Waymo . self-driving car gave up going through San Francisco fog just before 6:00 am this morning, according to San Francisco Chronicles, decided to pull over to a residential curb until conditions improved. Unfortunately, the five vehicles were clustered together, forming an obstacle that made the residential street impassable until the fog cleared.
Other drivers, unaware of the vehicleS’ inhuman operation, tried in vain to make the crossovers move. They flashed their headlights and tried to pass the stopped Waymo cars, in a way that sounded very Western. A New Yorker will stand still and just honk for two, maybe three hours, or drive across someone’s yard to get around.
Waymo vehicles are said to be back up and running within minutes, but the disruption still inconveniences San Francisco residents. Fog, a condition all SF natives are familiar with, has now made it impossible for them to control their morning commute in a way they can’t – a team of robots , unaccustomed to limited visibility, decided that the weather was too bad.
The Waymo stop is the latest story of autonomous vehicle testing disrupting drivers’ normal daily lives. Of course, an AV wouldn’t know how to navigate through fog without having experienced it, but it seems like this is the kind of test best done on a closed route — not narrow streets.
