San Francisco firefighters have been practically writing the book on how to deal with autonomous vehicles during emergencies as they’ve dealt with cars driving over exploding fireworks, citywide blackouts, and common collisions that are increasingly part of their routine.
But new legislation from a Bay Area congressman could help first responders deal with autonomous vehicles during emergencies by requiring companies to create dedicated communication lines and standardizing regulations around how quickly the vehicles recognize areas that are restricted by authorities.
The AV Emergency Response Coordination Act, authored by U.S. Rep. Kevin Mullin, D-San Mateo, comes about a year after another bill by Mullin that was designed to compel more data disclosure from autonomous vehicle operators.
The bill would also increase data transparency by requiring notification to jurisdictions where the companies plan to operate and providing them with an emergency response guide. Companies would be required to create the guides and make them available to emergency responders.
The guides would inform local authorities how to contact the company during an emergency, how to move a stalled vehicle, how to access someone stuck inside a vehicle and other information, according to the legislation, which is now in committee.
Waymo, owned by Alphabet, was the first company in the nation to start offering autonomous rides for hire. It began offering its self-driving Jaguars in San Francisco to the general public in June 2024 and has since expanded to several other Bay Area cities and 10 other cities outside the region, according to its website.
But Waymo has experienced a number of issues on San Francisco roads that have required intervention from first responders such as firefighters. The emergency guides are meant to improve and standardize some of the problems the city’s first responders have had in dealing with autonomous vehicles, including, most recently, during a busy Fourth of July fireworks event.
Zoox, which is owned by Amazon, began operating its autonomous vehicles in San Francisco in November after launching in Las Vegas in September, according to the company’s website.
Mullin and San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie told a group of reporters at a fire station in San Francisco’s Mission Bay neighborhood Tuesday that the legislation would bring more predictability to a process that has been evolving on local streets with mixed results.
“We have seen a disturbing and, frankly, unacceptable number of incidents where autonomous vehicles inadvertently interfere with emergency responders trying to get to people in danger, driving through construction zones, failing during power outages and contributing to large-scale traffic jams,” Mullin said.
Tiffany Moore, a spokesperson for Waymo, said the company supported creating a federal framework for AV standards in the industry.
“Establishing minimum guidelines would provide the entire industry and public safety community with a consistent framework, ensuring emergency responders have the resources and certainty they need whenever they encounter an autonomous vehicle on the road,” Moore said in an email.
The company says it has an emergency line that is available to first responders and created a program in 2018 to train them on how the vehicles work that continues to evolve as the company learns more.
Both Mullin and Lurie said they welcomed the technology and wanted the vehicles in San Francisco but said they wanted more uniform regulation requiring documentation of stalled cars and collisions, as well as improvements in performance and communication during emergencies and large events.
Firefighters detail recurring problems
San Francisco Fire Chief Dean Crispen said during the press conference that firefighters were spending more time dealing with autonomous vehicles in the course of their duties and that there had been repeated instances of the vehicles blocking access to fire stations and ambulance driveways as the cars picked up or dropped off customers.
“Autonomous vehicle operations should be managed to prevent stopping, standing or queueing in these areas to ensure emergency vehicles can always enter and exit without delay,” Crispen said. “These interactions can and do delay emergency response, essential emergency operations, and create additional safety concerns at emergency scenes.”
He said there were several issues that took SFFD personnel time to address during a recent Fourth of July event that turned chaotic as thousands of attendees at a fireworks display tried to leave the Presidio area.
Those issues included stalled cars when they were touched by people’s hands and a car that drove over active fireworks in the street and disabled itself, creating additional traffic.
San Francisco firefighters gained the first experience in the nation of a large-scale disruption of a fleet of autonomous vehicles in December, when a prolonged blackout throughout the city caused Waymo cars to become confused by darkened traffic signals and freeze on city streets. In one instance, a firefighter had to physically move a car out of the way because it was blocking the response to the fire that caused the blackout.
Crispen said Tuesday that the SFFD had created a form to log each time a firefighter interacted with an autonomous vehicle and would soon begin tracking the time the Fire Department was spending on issues related to them, which he said was increasing as the cars became more common.
He anticipated the day when a large-scale emergency such as an earthquake could leave numerous autonomous vehicles disabled on roadways, blocking emergency responders and other traffic. He said he hoped the legislation would help make such an event easier to manage.
Bill sets national standards
Some of the bill’s provisions would codify at the federal level regulations state lawmakers enacted in 2024 with Assembly Bill 1777, including a requirement to recognize geofencing within two minutes when areas are restricted by local authorities for emergencies, construction or events.
Geofences utilize a range of technology to identify physical areas. Authorities want autonomous vehicles to recognize them when areas are blocked off during emergencies.
A.B. 1777 required companies to be able to immediately recognize those boundaries by July 1, but it was unclear whether Waymo or Zoox had complied with that provision by the deadline. Mullin’s bill would require them to do the same nationwide within 180 days.
The bill would also require companies to create dedicated hotlines for emergency responders to reach the company within 30 seconds.
As part of a “rescue plan” that would be created alongside the emergency response guide, companies would also be required to use the hotline to answer first responder calls about more routine interactions, including any time an autonomous vehicle was involved in a collision, had an unplanned stoppage, during emergencies not directly involving the vehicles, or for follow-up information.