Here’s Cobbler heading south on Webster…
and then comes Moonwalk eight seconds later
…and there they go off together towards Geary:
Speaking of Webster, here’s Bagel…
…and Catwalk also heading south also on the same block also in the same lane also on the same weekend if not the same day:
IOW, here’s GMs’ old proving grounds, in Michigan…
…and here’s GMs’ new proving grounds, in California:
Or IOOW, we are it, we are the new West Coast Proving Grounds.
So who signed off on all this?
IDK.
Hey, do these Cruise Automation cars and/or their human minders drive better than some San Francisco drivers some of the time?
Yes.
But, do these Cruise Automation cars and/or their human minders driver better than all San Francisco drivers all of the time?
No.
It’s hard to believe that these rides were supposed to operating without a meatbag in the front left seat by 2019.
Hey, it’s 2019 right now!
How do you teach a robot the best way to double-park?
IDK.
But if you can’t let them double-park, how are they going to be useful?
IDK.
Hey, do you know who knows all the unwritten rules of how to double park in Frisco without pissing ppl off?
I do. But they’re not simple, these rules of thumb. They depend upon TIME, PLACE, and MANNER, right?
Or maybe there’s some other grand plan, like how New General Motors will have its own parking space on each and every block so its self driving cars can pick up drop off ppl like you and/or food like, IDK, Bagels and Cobblers. But wouldn’t that cost a lot of money.
Or maybe, to encourage our corporate overlords to do bidness in town, our SFMTA could simply give away the use of former parking spaces, the way it’s done with the star-crossed Lyft/FordGoBike bicycle rental program?
IDK.
Anyway, we’ll see how it all works out.
But right now, GM Cruise is NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME, drivingwise, despite all the promises.
Driving in Frisco is NOT EASY, as our corporate overlords in the Motor City area already must know, since this whole self-driving program enchilada has already blown its deadlines.
And another thing that General Monkeybusiness must know by now is that SOME STREETS ARE EASIER THAN OTHERS. It’s interesting to note that WEBSTER is far easier to navigate than, say, HAYES (where these cars have been beta testing, for YEARS now), but also parts of CLEMENT (New Chinatown North) and IRVING (New Chinatown South).
Anyway, to repeat myself, we’ll see how it all works out, over the coming YEARS and DECADES…
