Anonymous User asked: PDF Hobby suggestion: Waymo wrote a guide for first responders on how to interact with their cars.
It's got everything from "if you cut through this area, windshield wiper fluid will go everywhere" to "the orange liquid is coolant for the high-voltage battery; if you see it, the battery is punctured and you are about to have a Bad Time". More non-Waymo ones are on the NFPA website under Emergency Response Guides. Most of them are pretty similar, but they have one for the Honda Clarity, which is a hydrogen fuel cell model.
Thank you!
My favorite part was "To disable autonomous driving mode, simply open a door and talk to Waymo customer service so they can remotely disable the car. Do not allow the door to close until Waymo customer service has disabled the car. If the door is locked and you cannot reach Waymo customer service, simply smash the window to open the door so the car doesn't drive away on you."
Though this document still makes the Waymo cars' behavior around first responders seem like a relatively predictable thing, while outside sources report incidents like:
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Waymo stalls directly next to car fire, blocking firefighters. "At the Legion of Honor, a Waymo driverless car parked itself between a fire truck and a burning car. 'This action impacted our suppression efforts negatively due to members having to walk around the Waymo with a charged hose line and fight active fire,' wrote the reporting firefighter."
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Waymo enters a fire scene, next to active hoses. Police officer blocks it and asks for a "cone or box", bystander brings a tall portable delineator post and the officer places it on the hood.
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Waymo attempts to drive over active fire hose, police shout "No! You stay!" and light road flare to no effect, eventually get car to stall
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Oncoming Waymo makes left turn into path of fire truck with lights/sirens responding to an emergency. Waymo stalls for ~1 minute, blocking the truck.
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Waymo blocks street, forcing fire truck to reverse and reroute to reach the emergency
And, yeah, human drivers do stuff like this all the time too, but... it's kind of like how human artists might draw lopsided faces or awkward proportions, but they don't usually draw 8 fingers or clothing merging with flesh? The errors driverless cars make are weirder and less predictable and harder to correct.
It's entirely within their power to make a big fucking switch that forces a full stop and turns off the autonomous driving behavior but they didn't do that because IDK it's not futuristic and AI enough.