fire chief janine nicholson. and these are this is my update. uh, since our last meeting on august 9th, i want to thank those of you who command staff and commissioners that showed up for the piston event a couple saturdays ago. always love celebrating different cultural events in the city. so thank you all for showing up. it is all apec all the time in our city, especially for chief erika artasyrus brown and some swat for chief sandy tong as well. the asian pacific economic. uh, i never remember if it's conference or whatever it is that's coming here in november. i know they've been in multiple meetings with the secret service and, and we've also been in meetings with the mayor's office and we are having a meeting tomorrow as well in person and looking forward to that. uh, labor management happened on the 15th. all went as expected. there we are in a good space right now with local 798. uh, thank you for coming to the meritorious awards. for those of you that did, it was a good event and hopefully we we'll do this more regularly. we kind of got

san francisco fire chief janine nicholson saying there have been more than 50 cases of the self driving vehicles interfering with or impeding emergency responders. so far this year. i understand and appreciate the safety that autonomous vehicles can bring to the table in terms of no drunk drivers, no speeding , all of that kind of stuff. however they are still not ready for prime time because of how they have impacted our operations. waymo and cruise both site safety stats saying their vehicles are safe. cruise, avs have now driven over 3 million miles safely, the vast majority of which go unnoticed. but the company say the number of stopped autonomous cars is trending downward and that every instance is an opportune city to learn how to do better. where there's an issue and the interaction does not go as well as it could. we were quickly with feedback from first responders to implement improvements outside before the hearing. those opposed to autonomous vehicles like taxi driver matthew sutter held their own rally. he says expanding the number of autonomous vehicles on the roads would

. >> reporter: chief janine nicholson heads the san francisco fire department and says her crews have had to smash windows of a driverless car to stop it from getting in the way of first responders. do you feel the urgency from these companies to figure this out? >> there is so middle regulation over them that it almost appears like, we don't have to figure it out, this is moving forward one way or the other. >> reporter: self-driving cars are already being tested in at least 25 states. while california arguably has some of the toughest regulations in the country, some still want the state to hit the brakes on expanding the technology. protesters launched a social media campaign, encouraging people to place orange cones on the hoods of driverless vehicles in hopes of confusing the cars so they stop moving. back inside our car, cruise customer service contacted us to say they detected a problem and sent an employee to manually drive us to our destination. what do you think about your first ride in a self-driving car? >> i'm rooting for this. i want this to happen. but just what i saw r

san francisco fire chief janine nicholson says the city does not have all the data from these companies. she testified sharing her earnest opinion. >> i understand and appreciate the safety that autonomous vehicles can bring to the table in terms of no drunk drivers, no speeding, all of that kind of stuff. however, they are not ready for prime time because of how they have impacted our operations. reporter: 160,000 calls a 80% of them are medical related. this year, according to the fire department, there have been 55 reported incidents of interference. waymo addresses the emergency vehicle interference, saying the company is working to make sure their vehicles stay out of the way whenever possible. . despite the discussions, there was no indication the cpc uc did not plan to go forward with thursday's vote. dan: if the cpuuc allow this expansion, what is that going to look like? will this be flooded with these robotech sees? reporter: i have told us in previous interviews they don't plan on immediately adding additional cars when they expand. they say the same number of cars will be on

janine nicholson voiced her opposition to the expansion of self-driving services, saying the cars have blocked fire engines, ambulances, and fire stations. a carnegie mellon professor who specializes in self-driving car safety says the fire chief makes points. >> the big problem here, these cars are not good at dealing with the unexpected. that's a fundamental limitation to the technology. reggie: one of the big supporters of the expansion is former mayor willie brown, who says he is tired of the emergency response argument. >> the police department and the fire department clearly know exactly how to access you or i if we are in need of them, no matter what the traffic situation is. they have to live with that. reggie: as for the sfmta, they are excited about automated driving, but do not support 24 hour service expansion across the city. changes are coming to the antioch marina after a car went careening into the water during a sideshow. the car got pulled from the water early sunday morning, then another driver lost control, crashing in the fire -- parking lot and shearing off a fire

san francisco fire chief janine nicholson saying there have been more than 50 cases of the self driving vehicles interfering with or impeding emergency responders so far this year. i understand and appreciate the safety that autonomous vehicles can bring to the table in terms of no drunk drivers, no speeding, all of that kind of stuff. however they are still not ready for prime time because of how they have impacted our operations. waymo and cruise both site safety stats saying their vehicles are safe. crews avs have now driven over 3 million miles safely. the vast majority of which go unnoticed. the company say the number of stopped autonomous cars is trending downward and that every instance is an opportunity to learn how to do better. where there's an issue in the interaction does not go as well as it could. we were quickly with feedback from first responders to implement improvements outside before the hearing. those opposed to autonomous vehicles like taxi driver matthew sutter, held their own rally. he says expanding the number of autonomous vehicles on the roads would take away f

fire chief janine nicholson says there have been more than 50 cases of the self driving vehicles interfering with or impeding emergency responders. so far this year. the companies say the number of stopped autonomous cars is trending downward and that every instance is an opportunity to learn how to do better. where there's an issue and the interaction does not go as well as it could. we were quickly with feedback from first responders to implement improvements and waymo and cruise both site safety statistics saying that their vehicles, guys are safe and christian. we know there's also this discussion about about expanding the number of self driving taxis from waymo and cruise on the streets of san francisco. that will be discussed at an upcoming meeting. but you had folks who who turned out today to express their criticism for that plan. yeah, that's exactly right, alex. we actually have video of what that protest looked like earlier today. a couple dozen protesters here on the steps just outside the cpuc meeting saying that expanding autonomous vehicles, they say, is a bad idea. now, it wa

san francisco fire chief janine nicholson saying there have been more than 50 cases of the self drivingcy responders. so far this year. i understand and appreciate the safety that autonomous vehicles can bring to the table in terms of no drunk drivers, no speeding, all of that kind of stuff. however they are still not ready for prime time because of how they have impacted our operations. waymo and cruise both site safety stats saying their vehicles are safe. cruise avs have now driven over 3 million miles safely. the vast majority of which go unnoticed. the company say the number of stopped autonomous cars is trending downward and that every instance is an opportunity to learn how to do better. where there's an issue and the interaction does not go as well as it could. we work quickly with feedback from first responders to implement improved events outside before the hearing. those opposed to autonomous vehicles like taxi driver matthew sutter held their own rally. he says expanding the number of autonomous vehicles on the roads would take away from his livelihood based on what he calls