'We had to get out of the way': The backlash over delivery robots
bbc.com50 points by higginsniggins 3 hours ago
50 points by higginsniggins 3 hours ago
I have a friend who uses a wheelchair and he hates encountering these things in the wild. I know there's a couple different companies making these things and I'm not sure if they all behave like this, but they take up the whole sidewalk and won't backup or turn to get out of the way.
Instead they just sit there blinking and beeping at my friend, and of course in a wheelchair it's not easy (or safe!) to go over the curb or anything to get around them.
Automated delivery sounds cool at first glance but they probably shouldn't be on the sidewalk if they can't accommodate the humans who also need to get around.
Robots that cannot share sidewalks with humans, including humans in wheelchairs, should be banned from sidewalks. Full stop. End of discussion. They can use the streets proper if they want to.
I'm sure there is some way to formalize that using ADA sidewalk requirements or something similar.
I really don’t understand how a four wheeled self-driving powered vehicle is allowed to drive on the sidewalk when riding a bicycle on the sidewalk in that same city is illegal.
Probably under the same regulations that allow a powered wheelchair on the sidewalk. A low maximum speed makes up for a lot of things. But they should have a plan for encountering a wheelchair user.
Because traffic laws work for cars and pedestrians. Anything else in between in fuzzy and hard to define or legislate
> They can use the streets proper if they want to.
How about no? They'll block traffic there, too.
I worry that some enterprising person representing the delivery companies will find a way to make it so that if humans in wheelchairs block the path of the robots, then it's the humans who will have to yield.
It makes me think of that scene from The Man In The High Castle - "drag on the state."
> won't backup or turn to get out of the way.
This seems surprising. As far as I know all these carts are controlled remotely in real time.
Remote controlled by people in faraway LCOL places where they may not understand or be trained on Western disability norms, but are certainly incentivized by how many deliveries they complete.
I think it depends on the robot. The ones around here seem to be semi-automatic and seem to get taken over by a human when they're blocked, but it often takes 5 or 10 minutes before that happens.
Delivery robots also can’t come to the door. So for a person with a disability, or who simply ordered food because they didn’t want to leave the house for whatever reason (maybe they have the flu), it kills the value proposition.
This would seem like an easy ADA case.
I'm not aware of someone filing such a case yet, but I would think so too.
I'm not sure if you would sue the city or the robot company, or both? It feels like a failure on the part of both.
This article captures the problem exactly. In Miami, there are areas where sidewalks are too narrow for a robot (from Serve Robotics) and a human to share simultaneously, so either the robot or the human goes first. If the human wants to go first, they have to step into the street and walk around the robot. The robot and its operator are never courteous enough to back up.
Which raises the question: why should these robots be prioritized over humans? Why can't they use the streets when there are pedestrians? Why should the SAFETY OF HUMANS be compromised for these profit-seeking corporations and their robots?
> Which raises the question: why should these robots be prioritized over humans? Why can't they use the streets when there are pedestrians? Why should the SAFETY OF HUMANS be compromised for these profit-seeking corporations and their robots?
That's a good start, now ask some of the same questions about cars vs pedestrians. Ultimately, big money will win as it always does. Get used to dodging robots.
Those are not comparable at all, because cars also have humans inside.
Sure, and the delivery robots have people who want the things at the end, and the robots can't (apparently) go in the road.
Roads used to be for people and wagons, till cars showed up and kicked the people off. Now delivery bots are trying to do the same thing, kick the humans on foot off the sidewalks.
Some of this does seem to stem from pedestrian infrastructure not exactly being great in the first place.
Good point. Just look up the invention of Jay-walking. It was a marketing campaign that called people "jays" (bozo, basically) for walking "improperly" in the streets when that used to be what everyone did. Eventually, cities came up with penalties for j-walking.
I’m really not convinced these serve a genuine purpose at all. Beyond them always being in your way, they seem to be incredibly inefficient. This is something that would work better in a large building like a hospital, a mall, or an airport, rather than city streets.
If you’re in a city with some density, order a Jimmy John’s sandwich. “Freaky Fast” is no joke. Their delivery people make the sandwich for you toss it in their backpack and ride a bike over within seconds after your order is placed. I think my record is 7 minutes from order placed to sandwich in my hand.
Delivery places like that, the ones that existed before Grubhub and DoorDash, those are the ones that know efficiency.
If you’ve ever seen the delivery robots in person or on video you’ll see that they are super clumsy, and unlike human DoorDash drivers they make the restaurant employees come outside and fill them up.
If you go to the store to order a sandwich and it isn't the lunch rush there is a decent chance they'll have your sandwich ready before you pay. No joke.
As someone who regrettably orders a lot from DoorDash, I’ve had a lot of issues with drivers getting orders wrong (picking up the wrong bag, delivering to the wrong house, etc) or taking an hour to deliver something (even if I pay for the straight to me option) because they’re working on 2 apps at the same time. I’ve also had heavy smokers deliver, where my food tastes like cigarettes.
It’s been enough of an issue where DoorDash sent me a snarky email about how often I report issues with my order. Essentially accusing me of lying for a discount, which I’ve never done.
If a variable was removed where the restaurant was directly responsible for what’s going in and it knows where to go, that could be a big improvement in some aspects of the experience.
That said, I’m not a fan of these robots taking over sidewalks. I also think the inability for the robot to actually come to the door kills it for me. If I need to go out to the sidewalk to get the food from the bot, I might as well just drive to the restaurant too.
So I think they are attempting to address a real issue I’ve had, but I don’t think it’s the right solution. What worked a lot better was restaurants that employees their own delivery people. So it was the restaurant that was accountable for the whole experience. With the DoorDash model, no one is accountable for anything. It seems like there is little incentive to make sure the customer is actually happy, there are too many independent parties involved in the end-to-end process.
>regrettably orders a lot from DoorDash
I live in a dense urban area where it's easy to walk to get stuff, so that biases my perception, but why do you order from door dash? Is it a time constraint? Unless I was incapacitated or seriously out of time (which, as you say, Door dash doesn't reliably solve for), I can't imagine not walking within the range of these robots.
They are motorized vehicles, and as such should not operate on sidewalks or other pedestrian areas.
True but cyclists have already established a precedent of taking over pedestrian paths without consequence, at least in the CA Bay Area
What does this have to do with robots? What does a local government failure to provide cycling infrastructure have to do with private businesses co-opting public shared resources?
Post you're replying to: "motorized vehicles" You: "cyclists"
I don't get it. Can you explain why humans on bicycles are relevant to a discussion of motorized robots? Are you talking specifically about e-bike users scooting along on the sidewalk at 40mph or something?
One of the first of those systems, Starship, tested in Redwood City for six months, almost a decade ago. A "safety driver" tagged along, about half a block behind, with some kind of controller. Their units were slow, rather dumb, and never reached deployment. Too early.
Sounds like they're now good enough to deploy and be annoying.
These robots cover Los Angeles’ walkable areas, because they’re the only places they work for delivery. My understanding is oftentimes they’re piloted by someone overseas for less pay than the local delivery person market rate. To me, this seems like the worst of both worlds:
It takes up public space in the US, but the operator oftentimes doesn’t benefit from actually living and working in the US. At worst, it literally removes gig jobs from the US while still maintaining the physical presence a delivery person here could do, puts downward pressure on labor pay, costs stay the same for the customer, with no improvement (often worse, imo) to the customer delivery experience. So why do we allow it?
Do we really have to outsource something that inherently requires physical and local presence?
Seeing this reminds me of a project I delivered in the past. A tram installation was being planned in my city, and a researcher conducting a feasibility study asked me to build a crawler that would submit data for their research materials. As part of the process, they explained the study to me, and I got the sense that a tram and a delivery robot are essentially the same thing in this context.
When I was organizing the results, the personal conclusion I reached was that this kind of design is ultimately about redistributing existing public space. And in that process, the first people to be pushed to the margins are, by and large, the transportation disadvantaged. This delivery robot is consuming the same public resource, public space, and the same dynamic plays out: the weakest end up being pushed out first. I think it's a similar issue.
There was a trial of starship's robots in the city I live in, and they generally seemed to be well received (of the people I know who used them and just encountered them while walking/cycling around, and I didn't see any reports of trouble with them). But this is a city which has fairly good pedestrian and cycling infrastructure, which I'm sure helps. (they were also designed to be quite cute, which I think is also pretty important).
They had these in Berkeley when I was there, my thought was always, why aren't the homeless hunting these for food?
Or salvageable RAM
at today's prices, they could afford to not be homeless with just kidnapping two or three robots.
Because it's a crime? A major issue for the homeless is not food but shelter and storage.
In this case risk vs reward it crazy low
Guessing you haven't spent time in the Bay Area if you think "because it's a crime" is a deciding factor in these decisions.
I am not from the US so I would never encounter one, but what happens if you kick them / hurt them / destroy them? Do they have a recording camera that would show you did it?
Yes. Autonomous delivery vehicles and sidewalk delivery robots are equipped with multiple high-definition cameras. If an incident—such as a collision, vandalism, or theft—occurs, the vehicle's surveillance systems or navigational cameras will have captured exactly what happened.
What happens if you refuse to yield?
The argument of proponents used to be that it removes a lot of large vehicles off the street for small local deliveries… yes and onto the sidewalk. Makes no sense.
I don’t think there are proponents, just corporations with capital looking for a new way to extract and concentrate wealth away from individuals. The fact that it’s a robot on the sidewalk is an implementation detail.
The density can go up quite a bit when you don't have a car needing to haul itself around.
"because no-one asked us for permission to use the sidewalks for this business enterprise - "
color me surprised that yet another tech start up came in like a bull in a china shop acting like being a "disruptor" is a cool blanket excuse to be an asshole of a company.