Comment by Natsu
1 day ago
> I'm genuinely stunned that AV's do not have the ability to be "commandeered" by Police/Fire/EMS in a pinch, and I'm honestly surprised that regular citizens can't just hit a red button that signal "this is seriously an emergency."
The passenger of a Waymo can, but not anyone outside it. There's a very prominent "call for help" button on the screen when you get inside.
A “call for help” button is customer service. The ability to say “this is the police, drop everything and attend to this car” button would be helpful.
I've never actually tried it, but I would expect customer service to be able to move the car out of the way or push it to someone who can remotely pilot it.
Again, the main issue is that these things can cause problems with nobody is in the car. It shouldn't even be a debate. Emergency services should have a key that unlocks them and allows them to be commandeered. Everyone inside is being filmed all the time, so anyone going for a joyride is being watched, the car could be shut down remotely, and the person could trivially charged with a number of felonies, and then that access key could be removed.
If Waymo can't play well with emergency services, then they've got long term sustainability problems.