Waymo car swarmed by skaters in San Francisco 'hill bomb'

https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/Waymo-car-swarmed-San-Francisco-skaters-17300261.php

by turtlegrids • 4 years ago

79 78 4 years ago

sfgate.com

Pakdef2• 4 years ago

is this the same video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJO3_UADLGk

I don't have an instagram account...

trompetenaccoun• 4 years ago

Yes, looks like it. You can watch the video without having an account, although the Instagram site is super annoying to navigate when you're not logged in, same as Twitter.

dredmorbius2• 4 years ago

Bibliogram is an alternative interface to Instagram:

https://bibliogram.art/p/Cf2FPFsPZeD/

(Similar to Nitter -> Twitter, Invidious -> YouTube, and Teddit -> Reddit.)

Speaking of which:

https://yewtu.be/watch?v=TJO3_UADLGk

dxbydt• 4 years ago

was looking at your link and found this - https://bibliogram.art/p/Cfsna30F2h-

WTF is going on over there ?! So glad I'm safe in the boring midwest.

deepdriver• 4 years ago

Thanks for the link, this makes it easier for my de-Facebooked self to keep abreast of family who remain on Instagram.

Do similar alternative interfaces exist for Facebook proper, specifically group and organization pages? I've tried searching but haven't found any. Several local business only have a Facebook presence, no traditional website, and it'd be handy to check their posted hours and menus without creating a second Facebook account for the purpose. Creating such an alt account would also violate Facebook's Terms of Service.

bko• 4 years ago

Watching videos of this event reminds me of a comedian's bit where he talks about watching Rocky when he was young versus today. When he was young, he would cheer Rocky on while eating those raw eggs. When he watched it when he was older he thought about how hard it would be to get those egg stains off his sweatshirt.

I guess that's all to say that I am of the age where I see a bunch of young men shutting down a street, cheering loudly and flying down a hill with no helmet makes me cringe and feel bad for the neighbors.

throwaway_4ever2• 4 years ago

In an age where people are as lonely and isolated as ever and rightly complain about the ubiquity of car-based transportation, here is a group that has built an actual community around practically carbon-free transportation.

Though, yes, even as a skateboarder I don't condone the hill-bombing as it is legitimately too dangerous.

skavi• 4 years ago

Skateboarding culture is really stupid about safety gear. If they wore the same stuff longboarders wore when going down big slopes, the sport wouldn’t be nearly as dangerous.

rgifford• 4 years ago

I worry about egg stains on sweatshirts too. Some folks join us with age. Others live life right up to the brim, good for em I say. The world needs all kinds.

Reminds me of Cooper's Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake. It's this race in Gloucester, England. It's been going on since the early 1800s. Folks run down a 45 degree hill for 200 yards to catch a 10 pound rolling cheese wheel. It's as dangerous as it sounds, but fun to watch [1]. Medical staff is onsite and ready for the inevitable hospital visits that follow. They swapped out the cheese for foam a decade back for safety reasons, which makes me chuckle for some reason.

If anything the SF hill bomb tradition should get adopted by the city. Give it a date and time, close down the street, get medical staff and police on site, get some minimal safety measures in place, and give residents some notice. Then is there anything to be upset about?

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEh3wz-92i4

googlryas3• 4 years ago

Or we can just install speed bumps/dots on every hilly street and let young people figure out a different way to being needlessly reckless.

You're saying "good for em I say" to people who give themselves traumatic brain injuries and kill random innocent people:

https://sfist.com/2020/07/20/city-installs-raised-dots-on-do...

https://sfist.com/2019/07/20/well-known-skateboarder-tomoko-...

If they have some private hill they want to go kill themselves on, then go for it. But we shouldn't be shutting down public infrastructure for this. It would be like saying we should shut down I-95 so douchebags can drag race down it. Horrible idea all around. Having the state encourage this behavior is a great way to get more people TBIs.

Mumps• 4 years ago

I'm not sure your comment about swapping out the cheese for foam is true. I did the roll a few years back (in fact I'm sorta in the Netflix We Are The Champions episode about it). The cheese is basically wrapped in a wooden wheel, and let loose.

Best I can find is that in 2013 [1] it was swapped for foam. But I don't think they continued that decision.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/may/27/gloucestershire-c...

human_person• 4 years ago

I was one of the neighbors. I actually loved this event. The first time I walked by was right around the George Floyd protests and it was refreshing to see the police working with the local community (blocking off the street). So kids (and some adults) could safely use the space in a unique way.

sschueller• 4 years ago

I worry about the fact that those are raw non pasteurized eggs.

roflchoppa2• 4 years ago

Skating hills is tough. The last time I skated SF we went from Colma all the way down into Market then up to the POFA. Great times, def exhausting… hats off to the kids keeping that dream alive.

la64710• 4 years ago

Yes but please don’t wreck innocent peoples property and life with your dreams. Be a human!

InitialLastName• 4 years ago

and life

The only sign I see of anybody getting injured (much less killed) here is a skateboarder, which seems to me to be a self-imposed risk. Did I miss some innocent people getting hurt somewhere?

jeffbee2• 4 years ago

Not that I think jumping on the top of someone's car is obviously justified, but I am honestly curious how the car got to this point. Wouldn't it have had to drive past hundreds of people into what was obviously a large gathering to get here?

thatswrong02• 4 years ago

I was actually there for this event (just as a spectator): most of the people were gathered down at the intersection. The car came down the hill, and then it slowed down as it approaching the intersection because there were.. obviously a ton of people in the intersection. _Then_ everyone swarmed the car / surrounded it / jumped on it / tagged it. It basically didn't move while this was happening. Then eventually the crowd let it through.

jaclaz• 4 years ago

But according to the article the car had a driver in it, that "got out safely".

Besides the car being a Waymo (which may or may not be part of the reason why it was "swarmed"), it must not have been such a great experience for the driver to be circled and have people jumping on the car bonnet and roof, I guess it could have happened to any car happening to pass by that intersection.

WalterBright4• 4 years ago

When I was in high school, the local teens would gather every Friday night on a certain commercial street downtown, and would drag race from light to light. Of course it was illegal, but the cops had a quiet understanding that as long as it was just that section of road, they wouldn't interfere.

It was great fun. Not only were kids drag racing their cars, a lot more were showing off their cars, hanging out at the drive in joints lining the strip, etc. I remember one older boy had my fantasy Mustang, very heavily modified. My Dodge is an ode to that start to my devotion to muscle cars :-)

Unfortunately, some parents eventually complained and the cops were forced to shut it down. All part of the general removal of fun from our society.

WalterBright4• 4 years ago

The only thing that has topped my lifelong addiction to V8s and their noise, smell, and hearing damage, is I once managed to get a ride in the back of a P-51 Mustang. For those that don't know, that has a V12 that generates an astonishing amount of power. That was the ride of a lifetime. The machine just leaped into the air when the throttle was opened wide. (Of course it wasn't weighed down with ammunition, bombs, and tip tanks. Just my fat ass.)

And so I envy Tom Cruise, who is rich enough to have his very own P-51, and writes it off as a business expense :-/

mgraczyk• 4 years ago

Idk after a few near death experiences with people racing by me in SF, I'm cool with kids finding fun in other places. I did a lot of dangerous stupid shit with my car as a teenager. Some of my friends were seriously injured doing similar things. Fortunately we never killed anybody, but not worth it.

WalterBright4• 4 years ago

This wasn't particularly dangerous. It was confined to a mile of a 4 lane road, straight, well lit, the businesses were set back a ways, no traffic. The kids knew if they caused trouble they'd be shut down. Frankly it was mostly just revving engines and showing off.

In those days you could buy a working 440 roadrunner that'd press your eyeballs back in their sockets for $400. I almost bought a 68 Chevy Super Sport with some massive engine in it for $600. Sometimes I wonder if it was a good thing I didn't buy it :-/ That car today would cost a bleedin fortune.

Those people who do free climbing, they're crazy, and have a short life expectancy. Not something I'd ever consider. But I'm not going to tell them they can't do it.

wishfish• 4 years ago

At night, I sometimes scroll through the live TikTok streams. There's one I've really come to enjoy. Some drag strip somewhere in Texas is open to almost all comers. People bring in their street cars or custom vehicles. And duel it out on the quarter mile. Kinda fun to see something like a 30 year old supercharged pickup go against some brand new Infiniti.

There's some people around to make things are safe. No cops in sight. When a new vehicle rolls in, people crowd around to check it out. It's a beautiful thing.

It's almost convinced me that cities should put in a public access drag strip. Just like they have facilities for other sports. A place where the teenagers and gearheads can go nuts. But away from public streets and with some basic safety rules and equipment. I think it would be a huge hit.

foxes• 4 years ago

Why is the HN title “trashed” when the original article has “swarmed”? Jumping on a car isn’t trashing it.

dang• 4 years ago

Beats me. Changed now.

pvg• 4 years ago

It was in the original SFGate title.

mullingitover• 4 years ago

Oof, these poor kids. I can't imagine what's going to happen to them financially, but I feel like doing a lot of property damage to a vehicle that's bristling with high resolution cameras, in the age of easy facial recognition, is going to have consequences. Maybe they're just so privileged that their default expectation is that their parents will bail them out of anything, and maybe they're right.

Animats• 4 years ago

"My phone just stopped working!"

"Mine too."

"Your account has been terminated for violating Google's terms of service".

jahewson• 4 years ago

I don’t really see much damage being done in the video? Certainly nothing being smashed up.

nradov2• 4 years ago

Property crimes aren't really prosecuted in SF. Perhaps that will change somewhat with the new DA, but serious consequences are unlikely. (I'm just stating the reality of the situation, not trying to excuse or justify it.)

fny• 4 years ago

Here's the title of the posted video: "Skaters Mob on High Tech Surveillance Car in San Francisco"

Meanwhile, its posted on Instagram[0]... and in the video you see a bajillion phones out recording the event.

Oh the irony...

[0] https://www.instagram.com/p/Cf2FPFsPZeD/

rektide• 4 years ago

This attempt to counter-chastize rings hollow to me.

We all have phones we can use to film things. Yes. They do an ok 1080p, many technically can do 4k but look close at the capture & you'll see it's largely mush. To record, people have to pull put their phones & aim that at things: a specific & noticable event. One that typically comes at very significant battery usage costs.

Now by compare here's a vehicle with multiple sensor devices that cost multiple thousands of dollars a piece. You can jolly well bet these are predominntly always on devices. There's no indicator for when these devices might send the data back to the mothership or not- a true panoptician design; the threat of recordings being sent up is perpetually implied, it's medium-term buffers likely to get uploaded if anything happens or sampled anyways just because. These high end sensor platforms are actively roaming, are driving about, working together to gain a vast top down composite view of the world, something again a couple random instagram feeds provides only the faintest most distant glimmer of.

The power control & hierarchy here is clear as day to me. Fearing uncoordinated masses with low res handheld phones feels ridiculous by compare.

AirMax98• 4 years ago

The way we build cities around the car in the USA is kind of a blight, so I can't help but be somewhat relieved to see that other people look at these Waymo cars, with all that they stand for, as worthy of ridicule.

Gigachad3• 4 years ago

When car tech gets good enough to avoid almost all incidents with people, something drastic is going to happen. Naturally everyone will just step out on the road causing the cars to stop. So either driving through a city will become a situation you avoid if at all possible, or governments install fences and barriers everywhere and make walking without right of way a serious crime.

miketery• 4 years ago

Or cars are no longer a thing in high density zones in some cities (e.g. NY, London, Montreal). Only buses and vans. Some private cars w/ driver - but say $1000 tax / day.

incompatible• 4 years ago

You can step out on the road and a car with a driver will nearly always stop. They may sound the horn, or open the window and yell at you, as could a passenger in a driverless car.

danw1979• 4 years ago

Being able to freely walk across the road knowing that I have right of way and that the traffic is guaranteed to stop and let me pass sounds like like paradise compared to how things are currently.

I’m not sure I’d be all that sympathetic to those drivers (passengers ?) who wouldn’t take their car into the city because of those pesky pedestrians!

nradov2• 4 years ago

Cars without advanced automatic collision avoidance systems are going to be on the road for decades to come.

lancesells• 4 years ago

I think for a time there will be a lot of anger taken out on these driverless cars if they ever actually come to fruition. People are going to see these corporate ghost cars riding around without passengers and take out their frustrations on them because it's no longer someone's personal car it's a souless robot.

phendrenad2• 4 years ago

What if cities were built around public transit? Like trains? Or what about small trains that seat 4 people, and can go along many aboveground tracks?

aerostable_slug• 4 years ago

Sounds like a fantastic idea for a developing country that has a windfall of money. Hard to realize when the city is already built.

smegma2• 4 years ago

In a world where self-driving cars exist, far fewer people will need to own cars.

brian-armstrong• 4 years ago

This article's a nothing burger. Saved you a click!

thepasswordis• 4 years ago

Where's the "hill bomb"? https://www.instagram.com/p/Cf2FPFsPZeD/

This is a bunch of kids swarming a car and dancing on top of it. None of them even look like they have skateboards with them.

ramblerman• 4 years ago

When you give things a "name" it somehow justifies the behavior. Even if there was a hill bomb it wouldn't justify this in my mind.

almost_usual• 4 years ago

Those views and clicks only make some billionaire more money.

These kids feel rebellious though, that’s efficient capitalism.

dahdum• 4 years ago

I don't see the "hill bomb", but I see a bunch of kids swarming and climbing on a stopped car with, I'd wager, a frightened driver inside.

Seems like those kids are lucky the driver didn't floor it trying to protect themselves.

Melting_Harps2• 4 years ago

I don't see the "hill bomb", but I see a bunch of kids swarming and climbing on a stopped car with, I'd wager, a frightened driver inside.

It's all there in that video [0], I must caveat and say it's not my preferred source just the 1st I saw on YT with both events, and it seems the Waymo event was an after-event party antic.

Considering how devastated the Bay Area looks like now with mass homelessness and immense wealth inequality (we saw a glimpse of how volatile those two look like in 2020-21 on local businesses) if a scratched or damaged waymo car is the worst that happened that day I'd say they got off easy, hell waymo got free PR as it was shared all over social and normal media. They can use it as a KPI for their marketing team.

0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJO3_UADLGk

Ansil849• 4 years ago

Why is this bullshit tolerated? What I see is a band of thugs terrorizing a person.

And I say this as someone who skateboarded all through junior high and high school. We did so while doing our best not to be living stereotypes of being braindead assholes.

Komodai• 4 years ago

which was not in driverless mode and had a real person operating the vehicle

instantly became uninteresting.

Waymo car swarmed by skaters in San Francisco 'hill bomb'

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