Taxi drivers and their allies rallied on Thursday at the California Public Utilities Commission to protest against the unlimited expansion of robo-taxi companies, Waymo and Cruise. The state body will decide on July 13 whether the two companies’ self-driving cars can ferry paying passengers around all of San Francisco.
“We’re here to send a message to the CPUC: put the brakes on Waymo and Cruise!” Mark Gruberg, member of the SF Taxi Worker Alliance, said to an attentive crowd Thursday at 10 a.m., standing on the steps of 505 South Van Ness Ave.
Cab drivers and gig workers expressed concerns with the inequality inherent in the ride-hailing system: Taxi drivers, for instance, have been required for decades to pay tens of thousands of dollars for medallions to carry passengers around San Francisco. Waymo and Cruise will not be subject to the same fees.
“Cab drivers had to pay $250,000 for a taxi medallion to operate a taxi cab in San Francisco,” said Marcelo Fonseca, a cabbie with over 30 years of experience. “Why isn’t there a level playing field? It’s unfair.”
And, city-wide, cab drivers are “still struggling to pay for these medallions,” he argued. Medallion debt, which made headlines in New York in 2018 with cab drivers facing debt-related suicides, is a significant concern, Fonseca said.
Waymo and Cruise have faced significant pushback to their expansion plans in recent weeks: San Francisco transportation and planning officials sent a letter in early June to the California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates robo-taxis, urging the state body to slow down the latest plan to allow unlimited expansion.
Last week, San Francisco’s fire chief criticized Waymo and Cruise, saying the self-driving cars were “not ready for prime time;” the city’s police union followed suit.
Waymo and Cruise vehicles have wandered into emergency scenes, despite police officers and firefighters warding them off, using flares and sometimes smashing the vehicles’ windows.
Others at Thursday’s rally worried that, like workers before them, they too would suffer job loss from the new technology.
“We’re concerned about how workers are included in the narrative and in the future of work,” added Carl Macmurdo, the president of the Medallion Holders Association (MHA), expressing concern about job displacement.
Escobar criticized the CPUC’s handling of the situation: “I don’t see this as being a public representation of the greater good of society. This appears to be pandering to the privatization of transportation.”
Protester Martin Kazinski echoed that concern. “We’re not against technology, we’re against technology benefiting few people.”
Another protester agreed: “We’re not saying that technology doesn’t have a place; we’re asking what the future of our work is.”
This is what a capitalist society do to the middle and lower class.They trample on them to gain profits no matter what.Until we all rise up and vote them out of office, they will always win.
When it comes to safety humans can make mistakes , but they can also sense and feel danger. Where a machine can only function or malfunction and if they cannot sense or feel danger, than being human will out value the use of the machine. Empathy over Programming.
The City needs to do right by the Cabbies and buy the medallions back if they’re not going to make Uber/Lyft drivers purchase them.
Reminds me of the movie Terminator. We all know where we are going with technology. I won’t be a bit surprised when it’s us against AI. I can’t stand the stupidity.
You can’t fight technology. I drive Uber, and a year and half ago I began taking undergrad pre-req courses to get into a masters of science in computer software program. I’ve been admitted and start the MSCS this fall. Either prepare to buy a fleet of Tesla Robotaxis and manage them, or prepare to be replaced. Right now you still have employment, prepare for your coming obsolescence. Take action now while you still can.
They’re working on an AI to replace that job too.
Exactly — however easy it may or may not be to automate the task of driving, it seems hard to imagine a job easier to automate than financial asset management, which seems to imply that the “job” ultimately being proposed here is nothing but pure unearned feudalism-style rent-seeking.
You Voted For These People
If humans are no longer needed due to the arrival of AI and other automations, we will become extinct. Already the birth rate is below replacement.
That’s incredibly good news. I would take a 50% reduction in humans.
The [human] population needs to drop to what it was before the Industrial Revolution.
This Period of time will be a footnote in history books. No the time when the wealthy elites survived and the rest of us were phased out by technology… You can imagine what’s going to happen..
So normal people don’t have driverless cars .That technology should be after normal people and the whole community are established with driverless cars in the forseen future not now…
Sorry, but as a pedestrian; with an octogenarian mother who is still walking around everywhere, I welcome them.
Motorists simply don’t stop or respect pedestrians. Be it Uber or taxi driver or fill in the blank. They simply don’t, and no one with a straight face can tell me otherwise.
The self driving cars may be overly cautious, but they stop. Every time. And everything is on camera, fully recorded.
So as a matter of public safety, I’m inspection in support.
Motorists respect pedestrians just fine in places with pedestrian-friendly street design, like Copenhagen or Amsterdam; if developing and deploying an entirely new control system for multi-ton steel death boxes really seems like less of a stretch than paying the slightest bit of attention to well-established best practices in other countries, it’s no wonder the USA is in such a terminal state of decline.
This morning I had the misfortune of being behind several of these driverless robo-taxis which was odd as a single vehicle is not a common sight and these were “operating ” almost like a caravan of 3 or 4 vehicles. What first made me aware of them was the fact that traffic was being blocked and hindered by a driverless vehicle failing to make a right turn regardless of it being safe to enter on red as well as not moving when the light is green either. The lights cycled completely around 5 times by the time it finally moved. Then when faced with having to make another dreaded right hand turn, it almost struck a pedestrian crossing in a marked crosswalk, twice. The only reason the elderly gentleman was not stuck and mowed down is because another person grabbed the man and pulled him out of the way. There wasn’t even an inch of space between them. Then last thing I saw was the vehicle’s sudden, erratic, and unforeseen hard breaking caused one accident due to breaking to a stop for no reason and almost caused several other accidents.
Robo vehicles may have cameras but that doesn’t mean something is or has been seen. Technology fails. Components break. Programs are only as capable as the ones who programed them.
It’s about profit. Not safety.
So if something makes profit, you oppose it, even if it makes life better? Ex:
– grocery store
– cars, and its fuel/electricity
– electronics (the one you’re using)
– houses (buy, rent, etc..)
– hospitals (talk about medical bill..) & medicine
The address is 505 Van Ness Avenue. Not South Van Ness Ave.
“We’re not against technology, we’re against technology benefiting few people.” Completely false. The cabbies are only looking out for their own selfish gain to keep their jobs. This will make rides incredibly cheap for everyone and benefit all of society instead of having to pay ridiculous prices to hail a cab
When was a last time they hit an old person at a side walk? You’re just making up hypothetical fearmomgering scenarios that have no basis in reality. As if human drivers are so safe?
Robot cars are terrifying as they approach an old person crossing at corners. Nobody at the wheel. If you’re hit, you’ll be nothing but a little item in the newspaper. Every day there’s one crossways in the middle of an intersection, or across lanes of traffic. Who’s liable, or responsible for their inevitable breakdowns, the computer program, a drone operator somewhere? This is not thought out cleart by our city officials
Self driving cars are safer than the average driver on the road….
First the taxi cab companies were fighting the rising of rideshare companies. Now they are banning together on the automous cars. This is evolution that causes wars amongst us all. In the far future technology will take over the lifestyle of us humans and we will become prisoners to technology.
we already are
The app technology does not change the nature of driving for hire. Uber & Lyft are not “rideshare”, they are taxicabs in every sense of the word, and they should be regulated as such.
Now, Waymo & Cruise — just like Uber & Lyft — are about to get the green light to provide 24-hour taxi service in the City without paying anything into the taxi medallion system. Why can’t these multi-million, multi-billion-dollar companies pay? We in the taxi industry are not fighting technology; we have been, and still are, fighting for a level playing field in the for-hire market.
As Michael Harris says below, “fair is fair”.
The city charged taxi drivers 250k for the right to operate in the city….how are the robo taxis any different???gotta pay to play taxi in sf…just saynnn fair is fair
If this company puts onr car he should put $250K per car. I am a Uber Driver in the Carolinas. Pay or take cars off the road.
Safety is first. If it can’t protect pedestrian and respect out first responders who are doing an excellent job in saving live. They we don’t need them. Police, Fire, Ambulance personal help and assist in Safety and saving lives.
This cars interfere in doing there jobs. They are unsafe. Thank you first resonders.
Safety first..