In San Francisco, where cyclists already contend with angry drivers and unpredictable jaywalkers, self-driving cars present a new obstacle. In recent years, more and more vehicles have entered the city, making it a national laboratory for companies to test and improve technology.
According to recent federal data, bicycling deaths on U.S. roads are expected to rise to more than 1,100 by 2022. – Autonomous car companies are pitching themselves as part of the solution. But Bay Area cyclists who have first-hand experience of the future technology are wary, according to interviews and a Washington Post analysis of nearly 200 complaints about autonomous vehicles to the California Department of Motor Vehicles through 2021.
Many motorcyclists hope for a world of robot drivers who never experience road rage or are distracted by their phones. But some people resent driverless cars becoming guinea pigs that wander into bike lanes, stopping suddenly and confusing cyclists trying to maneuver around them. In more than a dozen complaints submitted to the DMV, cyclists have described unnerving near misses and close calls — including Martin's dangerous brush with a Cruze vehicle that he reported in August. 2023.
Cruise, owned by General Motors, and Waymo, owned by Google's parent company Alphabet, are two major self-driving car companies and have launched taxi-style services for paying customers. Several smaller players, including Amazon-owned Zoox, are also testing in San Francisco and other cities.
Cruze and Waymo say they prioritize bicycle safety and that of their vehicles Safety records are better than human-driven cars.
Still, Cruz is no longer allowed to work in California after one of his cars dragged a pedestrian and was thrown into his path by a human driver. And Waymo, Cruise and Zoox are under investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration over possible lapses linked to dozens of crashes — a sign of heightened scrutiny as the fledgling industry plans to expand nationwide.
Of the nearly 200 California DMV complaints analyzed by The Post, about 60 percent involved cruise vehicles. Most of the rest include Waymo. About a third describe erratic or careless driving, while another third document missing pedestrians. The rest included reports of autonomous cars blocking traffic and disobeying road signs or traffic signals.
“The car was driving erratically and at least double the speed limit on a residential street. I was nearly killed while riding my bicycle,” Waymo said in a March 2022 complaint about interactions with the vehicle. The author did not provide his name to the DMV.
Only 17 complaints involved disruption of cyclists or bike lanes. But interviews with cyclists suggest that DMV complaints represent only a fraction of bikers' negative interactions with self-driving vehicles. Christopher White, executive director of the San Francisco Bike Coalition, said that while most of the complaints describe relatively minor incidents, they raise questions about the corporate pride that cars are safer than human drivers.
Robot cars could one day make the roads safer, White said, “but we're not yet seeing the technology fully deliver on the promise. … Companies are talking about how it's going to help drivers. A safer alternative. If that's the promise they're making, they have to keep it.
Although California is the nation's top testing ground for autonomous vehicles, state regulators have a few ways to go to track issues beyond citizen reports—and many interactions go unreported. This forces authorities to rely largely on companies' self-reported data, which can shed light on the details.
California regulators allowed Waymo and Cruise to expand in San Francisco last summer, a moment seen as a win for the industry and a step closer to wider adoption of the technology. Even as federal regulators dig in, Cruise is starting to return its fleet to U.S. roads and Waymo has expanded its driverless taxi service in California and Arizona.
These moves will expose more cyclists to autonomous cars. Martin, a San Francisco rider, says he once thought cars were more predictable than human drivers. But the crosswalk incident punctured his “utopian idea” of what the future of robot cars could be.
“It's this weird feeling where you can't do anything when it comes to you,” Martin said. “You can't ring your bell. You can't yell at him. All you can do is get out of the way quickly.”
Many bicycle safety advocates support the mission of autonomous vehicles, hoping the technology will reduce injuries and deaths. They're quick to point out the carnage of human-powered cars: There were 2,520 collisions in San Francisco involving at least one cyclist from 2017 to 2022, according to an analysis by local law firm Walkup, Melodia, Kelly & Schoenberger. According to the state data.
In those crashes, 10 cyclists died and another 243 were seriously injured, the law firm found.
Nationally, 1,105 bicyclists were killed by drivers in 2022, the most on record, according to NHTSA.
Gee Kin Chou, a 73-year-old San Francisco resident who “bikes everywhere,” is eager for a future with reliable self-driving cars — especially when he gets old and one day hops on his bicycle. will not be able to To him, robots are docile, predictable and welcome compared to distracted or drunk human drivers. But it has also seen self-driving cars behave erratically.
In one incident last summer, which he reported to the DMV, a driverless Cruze drove “uncomfortably” close to him, nearly grazing his elbow as he walked past the Botanical Gardens in Golden Gate Park. In another incident, which he did not report, a Cruze cut him off “at full speed” while he was waiting at an intersection.
“I'm an advocate for these things,” he said in an interview. “I don't expect them to be perfect, and they never will be. I just want them to be better.”
Cruise recently began bringing its autonomous cars back to city streets, starting with a human-supervised autonomous vehicle. Driving in Phoenix and Dallas.
In a statement, Cruz said safety around cyclists is a core part of its mission. Spokeswoman Hannah Lindo listed the protocols the company developed with the League of American Bicyclists. These include cruise vehicles that are programmed to shift slightly into their lane as a cyclist approaches, and “regularly” updating vehicle technology to recognize infrastructure such as bike lanes and bike boxes.
“Safety is a guiding principle in everything we do and continues to guide our progress toward resuming driverless operations,” Lindo said.
Waymo continues to operate in San Francisco, and last month made its driverless taxi service available to anyone who downloaded its app. Cars are a staple in the city that pick up and drop off passengers like Uber or taxis.
Keeping bicyclists and pedestrians safe is paramount, said Anne Dorsey, a staff software engineer at Waymo who oversees the company's approach to vulnerable road users. “Anybody that's not in a big metal box, it's my job to worry about that,” Dorsey said. frequent cyclists, She has lived her entire adult life without a car.
Dorsey said Waymo's tech has been trained on more than 20 million miles of driving with all kinds of road users, from a group of people dressed in dinosaur costumes to people hitting a bug in an intersection. He said his cars use multiple cameras, radar and a laser scanner to see what's happening in all directions up to three football fields away.
Waymo cars have a sensor dome on the roof that can display visible messages from around the vehicle. Dorsey said it currently displays a graphic to notify other drivers when a car stops to pick up or drop off a passenger, but the company is considering other ways to communicate it with human road users. Can be used for conversation.
“As a bicyclist or pedestrian, I always fear from human drivers, 'Is this person looking at me?' But he has no concerns about the Waymo vehicles, Dorsey said, adding that the cars are programmed to give cyclists plenty of room and can recognize when a rider is a child or riding the wrong way. Cars warn passengers to look for bikers before opening their doors, he said.
Despite these measures, a Waymo car hit a bicyclist in February, causing non-life-threatening injuries. The company said the motorcyclist was crossing a four-way stop near a truck when Waymo hit them. Dorsey declined to comment on the incident, which is still under investigation by San Francisco police, but said the company is learning from it.
Meanwhile, a number of complaints to the DMV related to bicycles show a shaky relationship between self-driving cars and cyclists. In April 2023, a Waymo tripped a cyclist and caused him to break his elbow, according to a complaint filed by the cyclist.
Then, in August – just days after the state approved an expansion of those vehicles – a cruise car allegedly made a right turn that cut off a bicyclist. The rider tried to stop but then flipped over on his bike.
“He obviously didn't react or see me!” said the complaint.
Several cyclists said that even if self-driving cars prove to be safer than human drivers, they should receive additional scrutiny and are not the only way to make roads safer.
Jane Arc knows the world of cycling and self-driving cars intimately. Today, she is training to become a professional triathlete. In 2018 and 2019, he worked on Uber's self-driving car team, developing software to protect vehicles from hackers. Ark was initially excited to work on the project, but then an Uber self-driving car hit and killed Elaine Herzberg as she pushed the bicycle down a street in Tempe, Ariz. Uber later sold its autonomous driving unit.
“We all got a wake-up call that this is a real thing that can and does kill people — and that was the cost of making this product,” Ark said.