San Francisco Mayor Wants Safety Tests On Autonomous Prototypes

The Mayor of San Francisco, Mark Farrell, wants all developers of autonomous vehicles operating in the city to take part in a safety assessment exercise.

Wired reports that the exercise will involve providing detailed demonstrations of autonomous prototypes in action to first responders, transit operators and city officials, all in an effort to ensure they know what to do if something ever goes wrong. The mayor reportedly wants the whole thing to come together before the end of the month.

“Local officials are always going to be responsive to the people within their cities. They want to make sure they’re being responsive if community members have concerns,” said Brooks Rainwater from the National League of Cities’ Center for City Solutions.

While San Francisco’s Mayor may want to force autonomous vehicle developers to operate in certain ways, even he admits that, in reality, he is not legally entitled to do so.

“Unfortunately, San Francisco does not have local jurisdictional control over this issue and that’s why we’re doing everything we can be proactive, to engage with these companies and with these vehicles. Public safety is my number one concern here,” he said.

Other things Farrell wants from autonomous vehicle developers are detailed plans that inform first responders how to contact a vehicle’s remote operator, remove a vehicle from the roadway and disengage autonomous functions, and he also wants law enforcement to receive hands-on training with autonomous vehicles.