When driverless taxis began to negatively affect life in San Francisco, residents began to make the unmanned taxis that were causing chaos in the city, using traffic cones to immobilize them.
The people of San Francisco are beginning to feel uncomfortable with the driverless taxis that are becoming more and more common on the city streets. Citizens are uneasy because of the large number of unmanned vehicles on the road. Concerned citizens took action, uniting under a group called the “Safe Street Rebels”.
The band members found a way to stop the robot taxis. Putting a striped plastic traffic cone often used by road services on the hood of driverless taxis. With this method, unmanned taxis traveling around the city are rendered inoperable.
Rebels posted photos of unmanned taxis they sabotaged with traffic cones on social media. When a red-and-white striped cone is placed on the hood of driverless taxis, this confuses the autonomous driving system and keeps the vehicle in standstill mode.
Safe Street Rebels has several reasons to launch a fight against robot taxis. Urban residents consider these vehicles dangerous to humans. There are also complaints that autonomous taxis increase traffic congestion on metropolitan streets.
Affects city life
Events such as autonomous taxis damaging power poles in the city, crashing into public buses, and going over fire hoses during an emergency have eroded people’s patience. The rebels are urging everyone to transform these vehicles into “unicorns” using traffic cones.
Robot taxi operators Waymo and Cruise have asked police to intervene with the protesters and force them to stop their illegal street protests. Both companies reminded that self-driving taxi tests on the streets of San Francisco are allowed by the authorities, so rioters have no legal basis for taking such actions.
