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Overseas teleoperators aren\u2019t the only ones stuck cleaning up Waymo\u2019s messes<\/a>. Emergency responders are also having to swoop in when the blundering robotaxis muck up traffic \u2014 and they\u2019re starting to get fed up at having to act as glorified \u201croadside assistance\u201d for the vehicles, according to reporting by SFGate<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mary Ellen Carroll, executive director of San Francisco\u2019s Department of Emergency Management, warned that the frequency that police and firefighters have to respond to immobilized Waymos was becoming a public safety issue.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat has started to happen is that our public safety officers and responders are having to be the ones to physically move [the cars],\u201d Carroll said in testimony during a public hearing on Monday. \u201cIn a sense, they\u2019re becoming a default roadside assistance for these vehicles, which we do not think is tenable.\u201d<\/p>\n The hearing was held to discuss the chaos caused by Waymo\u2019s San Francisco fleet when the city suffered a power outage in late December. When traffic lights went dark, the robotaxis became confused, stopped in place, and piled up at intersections, significantly disrupting traffic.\u00a0<\/p>\n Carroll testified that there were at least four intersections at which police officers had to help move the Waymos out of the way during the outage, either by calling the company or a tow truck, and even moving the robotaxis themselves. Adding insult to injury, she claimed that her response teams had trouble getting in contact with the company, with one staffer who called Waymo being put on hold for nearly an hour.<\/p>\n City leaders at the hearing latched onto Carroll\u2019s \u201croadside assistance\u201d complaint.\u00a0<\/p>\n When supervisor Bilal Mahmood grilled Waymo representatives on what steps the company was taking to ensure \u201cfirst responders can be helping people in the moment of a crisis,\u201d Waymo\u2019s Sam Cooper, an incident response specialist, had pointed to how Waymo had helped train 1,000 first responders in San Francisco with its online program.<\/p>\n Mahmood, apparently, wasn\u2019t satisfied.<\/p>\n \u201cFrankly, what I\u2019m hearing mostly is that you kind of still expect our first responders to do roadside assistance, and you are just going to help us train them better to do that,\u201d Mahmood said. \u201cI\u2019m not really hearing a response about how you can take on some of that responsibility as well.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAs Supervisor Mahmood has mentioned,\u201d said supervisor Alan Wong, \u201cour first responders should not be AAA roadside assistance.\u201d<\/p>\n The hearing comes amid fresh controversy about driverless vehicles\u2019 disruptions to emergency operations. On Sunday, a Waymo robotaxi blocked an ambulance<\/a> from responding to the scene of a mass shooting in Austin, Texas. Footage showed the cab blocking a street after freezing in place, forcing the ambulance driver to reverse out and take a different route. Waymo cabs have also been spotted blazing through an active police standoff<\/a>, and have forced police officers to pull them over for mishaps like driving on the wrong side of the road<\/a>.<\/p>\n In a statement, a Waymo spokesperson told SFGATE that the ability for emergency workers to move its immobilized vehicles by disengaging their driving system came at the request of first responders.<\/p>\n \u201cWe recognize the need for emergency responders to have this capability, but do not seek to make it the default,\u201d the spokesperson stated.\u00a0 \u201cWaymo aims to limit the use of this feature as much as possible, prioritizing moving out of the lane of travel fully autonomously when appropriate and able.\u201d<\/p>\n