STOP The Madness-Newsom's CPUC To Give Approval Of Hundreds of 24 Hour Robo Taxis In SF

6/29 10AM STOP The Madness-Newsom's CPUC To Give Approval Of Hundreds of 24 hour Robo Taxis In SF
Rally At 10AM At California PUC Building Van Ness & McAllister St. San Francisco


STOP Newsom’s Plan To Eliminate Taxi Workers & UBER/LYFT Drivers

The Newsom’s hand picked California Public Utility Commission are under orders to allow the introduction of hundreds of Robo Taxis in San Francisco despite the fact that they are dangerous to human beings and animals as well as their flagrant violations of the Vehicular code. Mayor London Breed and her police have refused to impound these vehicles when they stop traffic and emergency vehicles and put lives in danger in San Francisco. These AI vehicles are above the law for Breed, Newsom and Biden’s Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg which has allowed Elon Musk’s Tesla to kill drivers, passengers and pedestrians while testing his AI on human beings. It is all about profiting from AI even if you are murdering people on the roads.

It also also for the end of environmental protection of our city since there is no control of the number of vehicles in the road. This is the wild wild West to benefit the billionaires and the capitalist politicians take their orders from.

It is time to say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

We must halt this AI insane profit drive to destroy the lives of Taxi drivers, UBER-LYFT workers and all delivery workers and make this a Amazon special zone for their plan to eliminate millions of workers and their jobs while profiting the billionaire class

Join Our Rally and Speak Out-Human Lives First!

San Francisco Taxi Workers Alliance
Alliance For Independent Workers
WorkWeek
LaborNet
United Front Committee For A Labor Party
http://www.ufclp.org
Contact To Endorse & For Information
info [at] ufclp.org


Self-driving Waymo car kills dog amid increasing concern over robotaxis

Collision occurred as canine ran out from behind another car, but autonomous vehicle could not stop in time to avoid contact
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/07/waymo-car-kills-dog-self-driving-robotaxi-san-francisco
Wed 7 Jun 2023 16.17 EDT Rose Horowitch

A Waymo self-driving car killed a small dog in San Francisco while in “autonomous mode” last month, the latest in a string of incidents that have led city officials to protest a planned expansion of the company’s driverless taxi services.

Other incidents include autonomous vehicles trapping other cars at the curb, entering construction zones and crime scenes and failing to follow directions from traffic control officers.
San Francisco officials also pointed to a lack of data transparency and adequate reporting and monitoring as reasons for the commission to deny the companies’ requests.

“This approach is backwards and is inconsistent with the commission’s power and duty to protect not only passenger safety but the safety of the general public,” they wrote.

A Waymo self-driving car killed a small dog in San Francisco while in “autonomous mode” last month, the latest in a string of incidents that have led city officials to protest a planned expansion of the company’s driverless taxi services.

The 21 May collision occurred just before 11am on Toland Street in San Francisco as the car was in “autonomous mode” with a test driver in the front seat. A Waymo spokesperson said that an initial review showed that the system correctly identified the dog when it ran out from behind a parked car, but “was not able to avoid contact” due to how fast the canine was moving. The company said it was investigating the matter.

“We send our sincere condolences to the dog’s owner,” the Waymo spokesperson said. “The trust and safety of the communities we are in is the most important thing to us and we’re continuing to look into this on our end.”

The car, a Jaguar, sustained minor damage, according to a California DMV report.

The collision comes as Waymo, which is owned by the Google parent company, Alphabet, and its competitor, Cruise, seek to dramatically scale up their robotaxi operations throughout the city. Cruise, operated by General Motors, currently has permission to charge fares for driverless taxi rides between 10pm and 6am in some parts of the city, but its cars must avoid the densest downtown areas. Waymo only has authority to charge fares if a safety driver is present in the car.

The California public utilities commission, which regulates the companies’ robotaxi services, is on the cusp of approving the companies’ requests to operate their self-driving taxis at all hours and throughout the entire city. The commission is set to vote on 29 June on whether to approve draft resolutions that would allow Waymo and Cruise to offer round-the-clock robotaxi service.

But the resolutions have faced fierce opposition from local officials. The San Francisco municipal transportation agency, San Francisco county transportation authority and the mayor’s office of disability authored a letter pushing back on the commission’s plan.

The city has recorded “dozens – perhaps hundreds or thousands – of incidents” in which autonomous vehicles were reported to drive erratically, block traffic and interfere with emergency response operations, officials wrote.

Last year, a viral video showed police stopping one of Cruise’s autonomous vehicles for driving without headlights. When police pulled the car over, the driverless vehicle sped away to the other side of the intersection. In another incident, nearly 20 of Cruise’s self-driving cars blocked traffic for more than two hours, forcing the company’s employees to physically move the cars off the street.

San Francisco doesn’t want driverless cars to offer 24-hour taxi service. Here’s why

https://www.sfchronicle.com/.../cruise-waymo-18134103.php
John King
June 3, 2023 Updated: June 4, 2023 12:51 p.m.

A Waymo driverless taxi pulls up to a home during a demonstration ride in the Sunset District of San Francisco in 2021. As driverless cars have become more ubiquitous in San Francisco, incidents have risen, city officials say.

A Waymo driverless taxi pulls up to a home during a demonstration ride in the Sunset District of San Francisco in 2021. As driverless cars have become more ubiquitous in San Francisco, incidents have risen, city officials say.

Jessica Christian/The Chronicle

The number of reported traffic incidents involving self-driving taxis has surged this year in San Francisco, according to city officials seeking to block the state from giving a green light to such vehicles around the clock.

The climb coincides with recent expansion of Cruise and Waymo service on city streets and “is almost certainly a small minority of the total number of incidents actually occurring,” said a pair of May 31 letters to the state Public Utilities Commission.

Overall, the number of reported incidents climbed from 23 in January to a peak of 93 in March. The combined total for the two companies dipped to 87 in April, the last full month in which problems were tallied.

Among the more harrowing incidents: a case last month where a Cruise driverless vehicle drove through police tape at an active crime scene and a scene in January where a Waymo car entered an active construction site and stopped at the edge of an open trench with workers inside it.

The letters are the latest sign of City Hall’s unease with potential dangers from driverless technology. They also come as the commission apparently is poised to begin allowing both companies to offer automated taxi service throughout nearly all the city, 24 hours a day. That’s according to draft resolutions from early May allowing such expansions. The commission’s next hearing is June 29.

Two near-identical letters — one applying to Waymo, the other to Cruise — were submitted to the commission on May 31 by the heads of San Francisco Planning, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency and the San Francisco County Transportation Authority. Each opposes the “virtually unlimited expansion” of “a developmental technology that is not yet ready for unconstrained commercial deployment.”

The city’s latest letters were first reported by the San Francisco Standard.

“These letters are a standard part of the regulatory process, and we have long appreciated a healthy dialogue with city officials and government agencies in California,” a Waymo spokesperson said. “We look forward to the continued partnership with public stakeholders.”

Drew Pusateri, a spokesperson for Cruise, said: “We’re proud of our safety record, which is publicly reported and includes millions of miles driven in an extremely complex urban environment. We’ve received overwhelmingly supportive comments as we have sought to expand our service –– including from accessibility advocates, small businesses and local community groups –– and look forward to working with them to make transportation safer and more accessible.”

San Francisco has served in a sense as a test lab for the new technology, but until now there have been constraints on the hours that robotaxis can be deployed as well as the neighborhoods where they are allowed. By contrast, Cruise wants to introduce a fleet of 100 vehicles that would operate around the city and around the clock — including downtown during commute hours. Waymo’s expansion would be similar.

The city’s preference is that expansion be done with specified limits and and only after full public review. But the draft decision from the state commission says that the requests for wider service meet past guidelines set up by the state Department of Motor Vehicles.

The draft decision by the Public Utilities Commission does call for Waymo and Cruise to collaborate with the city to find a “thoughtful” approach to expansion that will “minimize any negative impacts.” But the three city departments say such requests are likely to be irrelevant.
“It is unreasonable” for the state to allow expansions “before adopting expanded reporting requirements and minimum performance standards,” according to the three city departments. “This approach is backwards.”

San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Jordan Parker responded to this report.

Reach John King: jking [at] sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @johnkingsfchron

AI Ground Zero In San Francisco As Tech, Auto Bosses & Politicians Destroy Taxi & Uber Worker Jobs
https://youtu.be/Xn1X0Zo4Pto

Hundreds of Waymo and Cruiz robot cars are set to destroy the jobs of thousands of taxi and Uber-Lyft drivers in San Francisco. As a result of Governor Newsom's California Public Utility Commission, the tech companies now have a free hand to introduce these remote control cars without regulation and no enforcement for violating the California vehicular code by local police agencies.

WorkWeek has a panel of experts including:

Sue Vauhan, writer and San Francisco public transit activist
Mark Gruber, San Francisco Taxi Workers Alliance chair
Edward Escobar, Alliance For Independent workers
Gord Magill is a commentator on the trucking industry, having spent over 26 years on the road across 4 different countries. He blogs at Autonomous Truckers dot Substack dot com
Will Cook founder of America Without Drivers, is an industry veteran with 34 years of experience as a professional truck driver.

This program was produced on 6-7-23

Additional Media:

UBER, Tech, Drivers & Capitalism With Steven Hill
https://youtu.be/IJQ-gBaSPTU
SF Taxi Transit Workers On Tech, UBER, Lyft And Deregulation
https://youtu.be/MCrwoiYejWg
UBER Stop Lying And Cheating Us! Drivers Protest At UBER World Headquarters In SF
https://youtu.be/LDeLO1Yr-pk

WorkWeek
https://soundcloud.com/workweek-radio
workweeknow [at] gmail.com
#laborradionetwork #LaborRadioPod #1u #unionstrong
Production of Labor Video Project
http://www.labormedia.net

4. Autonomous vehicles are not ready for prime time, but at its June 29 meeting the California Public Utilities Commission will vote on whether to authorize two AV companies, Cruise and Waymo, to “offer passenger service in its autonomous vehicles without a safety driver present throughout the city of San Francisco, at all hours of day or night.” (See this June 10 article about autopilot Tesla crashes in the Washington Post.) Local officials have objected to the approval, citing safety concerns -- see the attached letter. The CPUC should hear from us about our concerns. You can send a written comment or call in on the day of the meeting. To send a written comment, fill out this form (note: as of this date, there is no docket number).

Date 06/29/2023
Time 11:00 AM
Location Remote access only via webcast or phone
Call-in-Number (800) 857-1917
Participant PASSCODE 9899501#
Contact email VotingMeetingHelp [at] cpuc.ca.gov or call (415) 703-5263
Webcast http://www.adminmonitor.com/ca/cpuc
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) holds regularly scheduled public meetings where at least three of the five Commissioners (a quorum) meet to discuss and vote on proposed policies, rules, and other issues.

The CPUC welcomes public comment at its business meetings. The public comment rules outlined in Resolution ALJ-412, Adopting Rules For Public Comment At Business Meetings, enable Californians to exercise their right to be heard by the CPUC, and to allow the CPUC to conduct business in a timely manner. Pursuant to Resolution ALJ-412, the Public Advisor's Office is providing the following rules and guidelines that apply to public comment at the CPUC’s Voting Meetings.

To watch CPUC public meetings only (no public comment)

Webcast: http://www.adminmonitor.com/ca/cpuc

Participants will have audio and video but will not be able to make comments or ask questions. To make comments or ask questions, please join via the phone line.
For captions, after clicking on the name of the meeting, click the green button below the video. Then select captions by clicking on the white icon next to the word “live” at the bottom of the video.
The webcast will also be recorded and archived for future viewing.
To make a public comment by speaking

If you would like to speak during the public comment period at the start of the meeting, you may comment in-person or participate by phone. We encourage you to call in or sign-up by 11 a.m. however you may make a public comment until the public comment period has ended. Reminder: parties to a proceeding cannot speak to issues related to the proceeding to which they are a party, nor can the public comment on matters outside the CPUC’s jurisdiction or on adjudicatory matters.

Phone line:

English Phone: 1-800-857-1917, passcode: 9899501#

Spanish Phone: 1-800-857-1917, passcode: 3799627#

Instructions:

To make a comment by phone, dial 1-800-857-1917 and enter the passcode for the English or Spanish phone line, as indicated above. To make a public comment, unmute your phone, and press *1 (star one) when prompted by the operator. Once you press *1 you will be prompted to state your name and/or organization, please do so slowly and clearly. The operator will call on you when it is your turn to speak.
Wait times depend on the number of speakers in the public comment queue. During times of high call volumes, wait times will be long.The operator will call on you when it is your turn to speak.
Each speaker will have 1 minute to speak. Commenters requiring a translator will have at least twice the amount of time allotted to English speakers.
The President of the Commission maintains discretion on individual speaker time allocations, depending on the number of speakers. A speaker may not cede time to another speaker.
In-person comments will generally be taken first, and the order of speakers will generally be based on the order in which speakers sign-up or call-in. The President of the Commission maintains the discretion to alter the order of speakers.
At the end of Public Comment Session, the CPUC’s President will ask if there any additional individuals who wish to speak. Anyone who has already made a public comment may not comment again at the same meeting.
If you experience difficulty calling into the Public Comment line, please send an email to VotingMeetingHelp [at] cpuc.ca.gov or call (415) 703-1496.

To make a public comment in writing

The CPUC also welcomes your written comments. Written comments on a specific proceeding can be submitted via the CPUC’s docket card. Please visit http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/docket, input the proceeding number, then click on the public comment tab. You can also visit the Public Advisor’s Office webpage at http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/pao for further information.

Useful Links

Current Agenda
Hold List (Agenda Changes)
Voting Meeting Presentations
Reasonable Accommodations

If special accommodations are needed to attend, such as non-English or sign language interpreters, please contact the CPUC's Public Advisor's Office at public.advisor [at] cpuc.ca.gov or toll free at 866-849-8390 at least five business days in advance of the remote access meeting.

Virtual Escutia Room

The Commission is required by Public Utilities Code §311.5 to make available copies of all relevant agenda items and revisions associated with its Voting Meetings. When a Voting Meeting is held in a physical location, these documents are typically made available in physical form in the Escutia Room. The agenda items and their revisions are always available online.

Each time the agenda is published, it contains the links to the most current version of each item on the agenda for the Commission's voting meeting. When a revision to an agenda item is made, the revised agenda item is published on the Commission's website. The link to the item on the agenda is updated when that agenda item is revised. A revised agenda is published once a day if any agenda item has been updated.

Agendas: To access each version of the agenda, go to the Agenda Search Form, which can be found here: http://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/AgendaSearchForm.aspx and select the desired meeting date in the Search By Meeting Date field, then click Search.

Agenda Items: To access the agenda item and any revisions, go to the Agenda Decision Search Form, which can be found here: http://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/aDecisionsSearchForm.aspx and select the desired meeting date in the Search By Meeting Date field for copies of ALL items and revisions for that Voting Meeting, then click Search. To narrow the results, select the desired meeting date in the Search By Meeting Date field and include the proceeding number associated with the relevant agenda item in the Proceeding Number field, then click Search. *Note, not all agenda items will have revisions.

If you require a hard copy of a specific revision, please contact the Process Office at Process.Office [at] cpuc.ca.gov.

More info on the CPUC Voting Meeting webpage

Notice of Recording: This public meeting will be recorded and may be posted online for subsequent viewing.