A night with the group ‘coning’ Cruise & Waymo driverless cars
Around 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, four people gathered at Duboce Park on the Wiggle, each on a bicycle and, most notably, several bright orange traffic cones in their front baskets.
This was the fourth night in a week of shenanigans for members of Safe Street Rebel, a San Francisco “anti-car dominance” and pro cycling, walking and transit group, that has reacted to the spread of driverless cars in San Francisco with a simple fix: Putting traffic cones on their front hoods to stop them cold in their tracks.
“They’re here! It’s coming up,” a member suddenly called out near 10 p.m. Several days of practice have given them eagle-eye skill in sensing the approach of driverless cars from 60 feet away, or through the camouflage of a tree’s leaves on a slope.
They waited in place, traffic cones ready, but this driverless car was too far away. Waymo and Cruise vehicles view the ubiquitous cones as sure signs of emergencies: Put a cone on the hood of a car and it stops. The cones used tonight had PG&E written on them and had been “migrated” from the Sunset District.
But within 45 minutes, the group had a victory: They coned both a Waymo and a Cruise, stopping the crs in the middle of Steiner Street.
“Let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s go,” they said, as a mood of enthusiasm grew. Based on their experience, teams from the companies can show up at the scene within a short 10 minutes to rescue the cars, but throughout the night every minute seemed to be its own reward. At times, snapping pictures of the capped cars, they resembled pirates hoarding loot, and they certainly showed the mettle of seasoned raiders.
At 10:14 p.m., they coned a Waymo. Photo by Yujie Zhou, July 8, 2023.
At 10:17 p.m., they coned a Cruise. Photo by Yujie Zhou, July 8, 2023.
Safe Street Rebel is hosting its week of action to bring attention to a July 13 vote on Thursday, when the California Public Utilities Commission will decide whether Cruise and Waymo can expand their robotaxi services to all of San Francisco and begin charging fares.
“This isn’t like the Board of Supervisors, it’s a state-wide committee that has a say over whether these can be on our streets,” a participant of the cone action said as he watched for vehicles entering Steiner Street.
Four days after officially announcing their work on Twitter, the group has gone viral. One of the tweets has received some 4.6 million views, and the group has been swamped with requests from some 35 media outlets that its members have to take turns for interviews. (They said “No” to Fox News, twice.)
In the group’s own words, their “enemies are cars, not people in cars.” They try not to interfere with cars carrying passengers. Sometimes, however, their eyes fail them — the windows are too dark. “Fuck you! I’m in here,” said a female passenger inside a Waymo they attempted to cap with a cone.
This incident was a notable failure, and afterwards the squad agreed with each other to say “clear” when they were sure the vehicle was unattended with passengers.
Other rules Safe Street Rebels have created: Avoid bus stops, and cars in the middle of an intersection, to make their efforts “provocative” instead of disruptive.
Over the course of the night, group members were upset to see some eight self-driving cars in 45 minutes on the Wiggle, a flat stretch of zig-zagging streets taking cyclists across the Haight from Market Street to the Panhandle — without the need to climb hills. “It’s supposed to be the city’s premier bike route. Why aren’t they taking any of the other roads?” a participant asked.
One night, the group recalled, they saw five Cruises in a row, seemingly all following the same route, which, they believe, could be disruptive to the city’s traffic if applied on a larger scale.
While public opinion on the group remains polarized, few appeared surprised to see them. “Good job!” a biker cheered as he rode by. A couple snuggled nearby also said they had seen the group on social media.
The group skillfully rode through areas where they knew driverless vehicles were more likely to appear. As they rode through the deserted streets, they sometimes opened their arms to enjoy the wind.
They picked up unused, abandoned traffic cones to use for obstructing the autonomous vehicles. “No department of the city has their own cones anymore. They all, like, steal each other’s cones,” one of them claimed.
“Cones migrate!” another member answered. “It’s a seasonal thing with the Santa Ana winds, they start going north. They’re like umbrellas. No one actually owns an umbrella, they get moved around. But the cones are moved strategically.”
“We make sure not to take cones from things that are actually marking hazards,” they added
At 10:00 p.m. The cones used tonight had PG&E written on them and had been “migrated” from the Sunset District. Photo by Yujie Zhou, July 8, 2023.
At 10:48 p.m., the last unused traffic cone. Photo by Yujie Zhou, July 8, 2023.
At 10:56 p.m., the group called it quits and left the last unused traffic cone around a dumpster, surrounded by its kind. Photo by Yujie Zhou, July 8, 2023.
At 10:40 p.m., the group ran into their third and final target, a Cruise vehicle at Fell and Baker streets. They put a cone on it, stopping it dead. “It’s wonderful!” said an older pedestrian as he watched. “I want a guy driving, not a robot. Keep up the good work.”
“One of the things that’s really made this go so viral is even if you support these vehicles, it’s really funny. It’s such a ridiculous sight. It’s a tech company and we made it a unicorn…Everyone likes unicorns,” they said, trying to explain the popularity of their stunts.
A Waymo spokesperson was having none of it. “Not only is this understanding of how AVs operate incorrect, but this is vandalism and encourages unsafe and disrespectful behavior on our roadways. We will notify law enforcement of any unwanted or unsafe interference of our vehicles on public roadways.”
A Cruise spokesperson said, “Intentionally obstructing vehicles gets in the way of those efforts and risks creating traffic congestion for local residents.”
The San Francisco Police Department has not yet responded as to whether the act constitutes a crime.
“The SFMTA does not endorse ANY actions that may increase the number of disabled AVs [autonomous vehicles] on San Francisco streets,” the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency said in a tweet. “We continue to express our concerns about disabled AVs on San Francisco streets that interfere with emergency response, with transit service, and with the ability of all travelers to get to their destinations in San Francisco.”
Safe Street Rebel first got attention in 2021 when the city wanted to open the Great Highway to cars. In 2022, they launched the “Just A Minute” project on Valencia Street, when they blocked vehicles parked in the bike lanes with signs reading “So sorry, just a minute,” the kind of note that some drivers leave on their windshields.
The group has also created some two dozen signs showing the routes, hours and a Muni logo to help people find bus stops too inconspicuous to be noticed, though many of these signs were later taken down by the transit agency without prior notice.
“We have a love-hate relationship with the SFMTA,” they said.
At 10:27 p.m. The group has also created some two dozen signs to help people find bus stops too inconspicuous to be noticed. Photo by Yujie Zhou, July 8, 2023.
At 10:27 p.m. The group has also created some two dozen signs to help people find bus stops too inconspicuous to be noticed. Photo by Yujie Zhou, July 8, 2023.
Even for a group with a history of creative protest tactics, the cones action is “more edgy” in a legal sense, they acknowledged.
The operation, they said, is like the “original notion of hacking.” Mirroring the demographics of San Francisco, the group has no small number of tech workers. “A lot of the people that work with the code are more skeptical of computers,” one participant said.
“Rather than just blindly cheerleading ‘All of tech is good. Every single new technology is perfect,’” another said. We can “choose what technology we want in our society.”
On the most bountiful night this week, they stopped some 10 vehicles; sometimes they noticed they had stopped the same Cruise vehicle — they all have a unique name — more than once.
At 11 p.m., the group called it quits and left the last unused traffic cone around a dumpster, surrounded by its kind. “We’re bringing more diversity to its population,” one joked.
Source: Mission Local
