Autonomous vehicles don't always share road

On a recent drive to San Jose via San Francisco, I had two opportunities to observe the behavior of the much talked about autonomous (aka “driverless”) cars traveling SF streets.

On Park Presidio Boulevard, in heavy stop-and-go traffic, a driver in the middle lane was trying to get to the right lane before turning. With the right turn signal on, the driver was hoping someone would allow entry to the lane. At the same time, a driverless car was trying to get to the middle lane from the right and kept turning on its signal for one or two blinks before giving up right away. Normally, the two drivers could possibly trade places, but the driverless car appears to have little empathy for the other car or its driver.

Then, at Lincoln and 19th avenues, a driverless car turned right from onto 19th southbound. It got stuck behind a bus at a stop. I was in that right lane. Seeing the bus leave, I pulled up behind the autonomous car, which proceeded to stay put for some unknown reason, blocking the lane for an entire light cycle.

I was unable to back up into traffic to get around or go forward around. My car was stuck in the crosswalk.

This was quite entertaining for the pedestrians who took pictures and laughed. I was grateful they did not hold my situation against me and just passed between the cars smiling. I even tried honking my horn to alert the driverless car to no avail (and the delight of the observers).

The lesson we discussed on the rest of the drive is that apparently the artificially intelligent software driving these cars is missing the subroutines for courtesy and human kindness.

— John Bischoff, San Rafael