10 September 14 - 20, 2023 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents about three months for Austin’s program to go from testing and mapping to carrying out its first driverless rides, which began around the beginning of this year. The general concept of driverless vehi- cles may not be a new one, but the potential problems they can introduce will be new for Dallas police. National headlines were made in 2018 when a woman died after being hit by an Uber self-driving test vehicle in Tempe, Arizona. Cruise found itself in the news that same year when one of its vehi- cles in San Francisco was pulled over for al- legedly not stopping for a person in a crosswalk. The passenger in the back seat was given the ticket. More recently, Cruise drew less-than- positive attention when a pair of its modi- fied Chevy Bolt electric vehicles stalled in the middle of a busy downtown Austin in- tersection in July. The company told Aus- tin’s Fox 7 that stopping in that situation was in line with its safety protocol in that “whenever the technology isn’t extremely confident in how to proceed, the car errs on the side of caution instead of forging ahead, coming to a safe stop.” How will the Dallas Police Department handle issues regarding autonomous vehi- cles? Is there a plan in place for officers to follow when they need to pull over a Cruise robo taxi, whether it be for safety purposes or for alleged violations such as speeding or running a stop sign? If there are established protocols to fol- low already, neither the department nor the city is saying what they are. If anything, the vague answers we received to our very spe- cific questions suggests that Dallas police aren’t yet sure how they will interact with the Cruise robo taxis in instances involving possible infractions. We reached out to Dallas police with a short list of specific questions targeted at the police response to pulling over a driverless vehicle and were quickly referred to the city’s media contact and attorney’s office. We submitted the same questions to them. “This is part of the ongoing conversa- tions with city departments regarding au- tonomous vehicles to ensure all state and local laws are followed,” wrote city of Dallas Manager of Public Information Jennifer Brown in reply to our email. We followed up with an email asking for further clarifica- tion, and Catherine Cuellar, the city’s direc- tor of communications, outreach and marketing replied via email: “These ques- tions are expected to be addressed in the Transportation Committee in a briefing af- ter the FY24 budget is adopted.” This is notable, given that the vehicles have been in town for more than three months now, and a Cruise spokesperson has told us the company “hope[s] to have a com- mercial service up and running by the end of the year. That’s the goal.” We also reached out to City Council member Omar Narvaez, the committee chair for Transportation and Infrastructure, with our questions and to council member Cara Mendelsohn, who now chairs the Public Safety Committee, but did not receive a reply from either. For its part, Cruise makes it sound as though it won’t be too difficult for police and emergency services to catch the atten- tion of their vehicles when necessary. “Our cars have multiple sensors, lidars and radars that can tell if a police officer has lights on behind it,” the Cruise spokesper- son said. “The car will pull over to a safe space, just like you have all of your life if you’re being pulled over.” Once an officer has a Cruise robo taxi pulled over, a phone number will be dis- played on large tablet screens inside the ve- hicle for the officer to call and connect with a customer service rep. But even the many technological inno- vations each driverless vehicle is equipped with aren’t enough to completely eliminate problems with city emergency services. On Aug. 17, a Cruise robo taxi was involved in a crash with a San Francisco fire truck, re- sulting in injury to the taxi’s passenger. Ac- cording to reports, a firefighter claimed that the robo taxi did not properly yield to the fire truck as it was responding to a nearby call. The San Francisco incident came just a few days after some “city officials called for the suspension of robotaxi rollouts follow- ing multiple reports of the vehicles causing traffic issues or interfering with first re- sponders,” according to a CBS San Francisco report. The passenger of a Cruise robo taxi will have some control over how events pro- ceed. Using an app and certain in-car con- trols, passengers can alter their route, change their destination and initiate im- mediate communication with a customer service rep. The spokesperson says these are just some of the steps the company has taken to make a Cruise ride as safe as possible. The spokesperson said Cruise has been in communication with local authorities re- garding safety and compliance. And for all of the accidents or problems that have grabbed headlines, the safety numbers for Cruise riders lean overwhelmingly in the compa- ny’s favor, she said. “There are 40,000 road deaths a year,” the spokesperson said. “As humans, we opti- mize our driving for ourselves. A robo taxi optimizes for safety. That means they drive the speed limit and don’t drive tired or any- thing like that. In over 4 million driverless miles Cruise has driven, there have been no major injuries or deaths. That’s pretty sub- stantial.” ▼ PUBLIC SAFETY YOUR EMERGENCY, LIVE! CARROLLTON AND NEIGHBORING CITIES INTRODUCE LIVESTREAM 911 CALLS.BY KELLY DEARMORE T he minutes a 911 caller spends on the phone with an operator are often filled with frenzy and uncertainty. Attempts to describe an emergency can eas- ily leave out key details that would help first responders know exactly what they’re re- sponding to. A handful of North Texas cities have introduced new technological ele- ments to their 911 service designed to make their emergency responses more special- ized, efficient and effective. According to an Aug. 30 press release from the city of Carrollton, a program called Prepared 911 was recently deployed at the North Texas Emergency Communi- cations Center (NTECC), the joint 911 dis- patch hub for Addison, Carrollton, Coppell and Farmers Branch. The high- light feature of the program is the use of livestream technology, which will enable dispatchers to get a glimpse in real time of the emergency. The 911 dispatcher sends a link via text message to the caller, who can then opt-in to provide the livestream during the incident. “The livestream is one-way, meaning that callers will not be able to see the face of the 911 dispatcher,” wrote a spokesperson for the city of Carrollton in an email to the Ob- server. “Callers can show their surroundings to dispatchers while still remaining con- nected on the phone with them and further describe the situation. Any video that dis- patchers receive will also go directly to first responders to increase preparedness and di- rect the appropriate resources.” Prepared Live 911 is being used by cit- ies in Colorado, Maine and Maryland as well. The new video stream feature is in addition to the ability to text with a 911 dispatcher in the event the caller is unable to speak over the phone during an emer- gency. NTECC implemented that function in 2019. The voluntary livestream option does not require an app and works with a phone’s front-facing and rear-facing cameras. Dur- ing the course of an emergency when the caller is livestreaming with the 911 dis- patcher, the caller might be instructed on what to show or where to hold the phone so responders can comprehend the situation as much as possible. Terry Goswick, NTECC executive di- rector, said that the Prepared 911 program will be useful during almost any in-prog- ress call. But, he noted, medical emergen- cies when someone is unable to breathe or has fallen are examples of the kind of emer- gencies that might benefit most from the livestream capability. In situations where a few minutes can bridge the gap between life and death, the ability for a dispatcher to peek directly into a medical emergency could be game-chang- ing. It’s long been standard practice for 911 dispatchers to relay instructions so a caller can perform chest compressions on a per- son who requires CPR. Now, a dispatcher can have a clear understanding of whether the compressions are working based on what they see, which should result in emer- gency personnel being better prepared for what to expect when they arrive. Carrollton’s executive director of public safety, Rex Redden, thinks the site of a major car wreck is another emergency Matt Napo/Unsplash Emergency 911 calls in some North Texas cities will have a livestream option. Unfair Park from p8 >> p12
