A Stalled Waymo Blocked Kamala Harris’s Motorcade in San Francisco

In what weirdly feels like a unfriendly gesture from the tech industry itself , a Waymo robotaxi drag one’s feet out in front of Vice President Kamala Harris ’ motorcade in San Francisco on Friday night .

Harris has already suffered significant hostility from Silicon Valley , where a largeaggregate of crypto brosand a number ofinfluential tech tycoons(including , most conspicuously , Elon Musk ) have decide to support Donald Trump over the popular candidate . As if to demonstrate the strained relations between the tech industry and the candidate , one of Waymo ’s sovereign car decided , of its own accord , to lay down in front of her motorcade and transubstantiate itself into a vehicular dealings strobilus .

The vehicle was in the cognitive process of making a U - Turn on California Street in the metropolis ’s Nob Hill neighborhood when it misfunction and bar moving , the San Francisco Standardreports . Harris ’s motorcade — which was en route to her hotel — was behind the elevator car when it abruptly kibosh . It ’s indecipherable how long the motorcade was stall , or if the AV was really a job for the vice chairperson at all . Eventually , a local law officer was forced to jump inside the driverless car and manually steer it out of dealings .

A Waymo on Steiner Street in San Francisco

© JASON HENRY/AFP via Getty Images

bechance NOW : A driverless@Waymogets stuck making a atomic number 92 - turn as@VP ’s motorcade arrived at the Fairmont S.F.An SFPD officer had to manually drive the vehicle out . We ’re hear this was n’t the only one…@abc7newsbayareapic.twitter.com/uCdiTf9lbB

— LaurenABC7 ( @LaurenABC7)September 28 , 2024

Gizmodo reached out to Waymo for comment .

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Much of the Harris - related consternation from technical school elite group seems to halt from the fact that , unlike Republicans , the Democratic Party has attempted toregulate the tech industryto some degree . Under Joe Biden , the federal government hascracked downon the crypto industriousness ’s most notorious actors and has passedrather meek AI regulations .

This is n’t the first metre a robotaxi has randomly died in the middle of a San Francisco crossroad . The driverless vehicles , which have become a striking fixture of the city since California approve broader function of the vehicle last year , have been causing traffic problems for many months now .

It ’s probably a good thing , then , that California Governor Gavin Newsom lately sign a throwaway into legal philosophy that will create new regulations for the robotaxi manufacture . AB1777will ask self - driving auto manufacturer to comply with a number of new stipulations . Most notably , the law will give up law to refer ego - driving car companies for dealings misdemeanor connected to their vehicle . ( Currently , robotaxis are gratis to close up traffic with no effectual event . ) The law will go into effect in 2026.The Verge reportsthat Newsom recently vetoed two other sovereign fomite - related bill — one that would have banish autonomous trucks from operate on public roads , and another that would have created data reportage requirements for autonomous fomite companies .

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