--- title: "Ten Self-Driving Cars Cause Huge Traffic Jam After Losing Wireless Signal" description: "Self-driving cars caused a major traffic jam on Friday in San Francisco when ten of its self-driving taxis simply shut down." date: "2023-08-15" modified: "2023-08-15" authors: - name: "Maggie Harrison Dupré" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/mharrison" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/self-driving-cars-traffic-jam-wireless" categories: - "Advanced Transport" - "Self-Driving Vehicles" tags: - "Autonomous vehicles" - "driverless cars" - "robotaxi" - "the digest" --- # Ten Self-Driving Cars Cause Huge Traffic Jam After Losing Wireless Signal ![Self-driving cars caused a major traffic jam on Friday in San Francisco when ten of its self-driving taxis simply shut down.]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* ## Self-Driving Wars Talk about poor timing. As [*CBS* reported this weekend](), the self-driving carmaker Cruise caused a major traffic jam on Friday in San Francisco when ten of its controversial robotaxis simply *shut down* after losing their wireless signals. Which, of course, would never be a great look. But considering that a large number of San Franciscans are still very much pissed about the fact that California regulators [just granted]() autonomous vehicle firms permission to expand their services throughout the city, this weekend was a particularly inopportune moment for Cruise's cars to go "[immobolus]()" on the city. https://twitter.com/Cruise/status/1690423649134854145 ## Bandwidth Battles Videos of the traffic-stopping event showed Cruise cars paralyzed on San Francisco streets, blinkers on, while lines of human-driven vehicles sat in stand-still traffic behind them. "Self-driving operations had a complete meltdown earlier in North Beach," reads the caption of a [Friday night Twitter-formerly-X post]() from a user who took several videos of the Cruise-induced slow-down, adding a "wow, WTF!" for good measure. Later, in response to the post, Cruise blamed the slow-down on a large music festival that was taking place in the area, arguing that the festival vacuumed up all of the city's bandwidth. "A large festival posed wireless bandwidth constraints causing delayed connectivity to our vehicles," Cruise [wrote in its response](). "We are actively investigating and working on solutions to prevent this from happening again. We apologize to those who were impacted." All fine and good, but if you're about to deploy your driverless cars in a city that already doesn't really trust you, you'd probably do better to double-check your wireless connection *before* [Janelle Monae and Kendrick Lamar]() take up too much precious city bandwidth at Outside Lands. Worse, the entire idea of a car that only works when connected to the internet is just bizarre. What about if there's a natural disaster? A service outage? A need to use the vehicle in a rural area? And as one concerned San Franciscan pointed out to *CBS*, traffic slow-downs aren't just annoying. They can also be dangerous. "If there's an emergency, the emergency vehicle cannot come down through," Jeffrey Bilbrey, a resident of San Francisco's North Beach area, told the news outlet. "They can't roll through those cars." "We don't need them here," he added. "We did fine before they came here." Look: missteps happen. But if Cruise and other autonomous carmakers are looking to build trust with residents of the locales they're servicing? This is a hell of a place to start. **More on self-driving cars:** [*People in San Francisco Are Already Having Sex in Self-Driving Taxis*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've reported extensively on the rise of AI as a cultural and business force shaping the media industry, and more broadly how those dynamics are changing how we all consume and share information and relate to one another. I'm also fascinated by public health policy and ethics, the role of emerging tech in politics and governance — and the powerful people and forces at those intersections — climate change, and the environment. My investigation on Sports Illustrated's use of AI-generated authors with fictional biographies won a 2024 Mirror Award for "Best Story on Media Coverage of Artificial Intelligence in Journalism and the Media" from Syracuse University's SI Newhouse School, I contributed to Niemen Lab's 2025 Predictions for Journalism series, and I've discussed my work for Futurism during appearances on NPR, CNN, the BBC, the CBC, and more. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania and attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where I played Division I field hockey for the Minutewomen as a midfielder. Since then, I've lived in New Orleans, Louisiana and Manhattan, New York. I spend my free time running, reading, perusing archival fashion, and searching for the world’s best negroni. I also have a debonair tuxedo cat, Westley, who's named after "The Princess Bride." ### Author social links [Bluesky]()