San Francisco Fire Chief Jeanine Nicholson said there have been more than 50 cases of the self-driving vehicles interfering with or impeding emergency responders so far this year.
"I appreciate the safety that autonomous vehicles can bring to the table in terms of no drunk drivers, no speeding all of that kind of stuff," said Chief Nicholson. "However, they're still not ready for prime time because of how they've impacted our operations." Waymo and Cruise both cite safety statistics saying their vehicles are safe. "Cruise AVs have now driven 3 million miles safely, the vast majority of which go unnoticed," said Prashanthi Raman from Cruise.
The companies say the number of stopped autonomous cars is trending downward, and that every instance is an opportunity to learn how to do better. "When there's an issue and the interactions does not go as well as it could, we work quickly with feedback from first responders to implement improvements." said Shweta Shrivastava from Waymo.
Stream KTVU on your TV by downloading Fox Local on your Roku, Amazon Fire, AndroidTV or AppleTV device for free.Outside before the hearing, those opposed to autonomous vehicles like taxi driver Matthew Sutter held their own rally he says expanding the number autonomous vehicles on the roads would take away his livelihood, based on what he calls unproved technology.