MUNI Bus Killed San Francisco Man at Center of Robotaxi, Firefighter Dispute | Hacker News Reader

MUNI Bus Killed San Francisco Man at Center of Robotaxi, Firefighter Dispute

sfstandard.com

30 pointsyasp12 comments

Article is pretty short, but here's a summary anyway:

"Absolutely incredible and yet another example of 'things that only happen in SF'.

An MTA bus ran over a man in SF and killed him without noticing. The ambulance takes him to the hospital but he's dead before arriving. The Fire Department then writes a report blaming a random Cruise autonomous vehicle that happened to be nearby for the death, despite no evidence thereof.

Cruise obviously disputes this account, provides video footage to the press and SFFD proving they're correct. Media continues reporting false information and fanning the flames.

A month later it's finally revealed that public transit is the hit-and-run driver that killed the man, and Cruise (ironically autonomous driving technology that would've probably prevented a collision) had no involvement. By this point the media cycle has mostly moved on and people are taking hammers to Cruise vehicles."

https://twitter.com/itsvarora/status/1701743907841696021

“MUNI attempt to deflect from them reversing over someone by mentioning self driving cars”

The firefighter's story unravelled on the first or second day of this story when Cruise shared their data showing the ambulance was not restricted in a way that Cruise was required to accomodate (and they still left within 30 seconds). They (firefighters) never should have made their public claim unless they had verified their facts in detail first.

What do you mean? If the emergency lights and sirens are on, then other vehicles must pull over to the right and stop. “Well, you can pass me on the right” is not the standard.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37371922

“I think SFFD is rightfully worried about robotaxis but this doesn’t seem to be the case. When cameras are recording everything, you can’t just make up facts.” (10 days ago)

The irony here. Is everything corporate/information/cultural warfare propaganda these days?

How did the back of a bus kill someone?

Humans are pretty delicate. Take a fall, hit your head the wrong way, and that’s it…

Probably reversed over or into him.

I've never seen a Muni bus go in reverse.

Due to the distance between the rear wheels and the back of a bus, you get a thing called "tail swing".

During a sharp turn, the back end of a bus can pivot out and hit something with the side of the bus behind the rear wheels.

I don't know if this is what happened, but that's how it could happen.

Title is misspelled, it should be “Muni”, not all-caps.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com