Resisting Decisions: Coneheads in California

This chapter considers the nascent rise of anti-autonomous vehicle activism in San Francisco. Centred on Cruise’s lengthy battle to receive permission to operate autonomous vehicle passenger services (AVPS), the chapter considers how resistance to autonomous vehicles has slowly fermented. Connecting opposition back to the infamous protests against ‘Google buses’ shuttling workers to big tech campuses in the early 2010s, the chapter narrates the story of initial regulatory forms of resistance to AVPS operations in San Francisco. After calls by municipal transportation bodies for an ‘incremental’ approach to the public rollout of AVPS operations resistance abruptly moved out of a regulatory domain, with the launch of a campaign by an activist group called Safe Street Rebel. During a ‘Week of Cone’ called for by the group, Cruise vehicles became paralyzed by humble traffic cones placed on the hood of each vehicle. Despite such efforts Cruise’s application for expanded AVPS operations were approved—only for them to be swiftly suspended following implication in a road traffic accident. The following month, Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt resigned, bringing an apparent end to a tumultuous period in the rollout of AVPS operations in San Francisco—and possibly to autonomous vehicles, full stop.