'Rebel' group disabling driverless cars with traffic cones

(NewsNation) — An activist group in San Francisco is on a mission to put the brake on driverless cars.

A secretive group called Safe Street Rebel has been disabling driverless vehicles by putting orange traffic cones on their hoods. This disrupts the sensors and immediately disables the vehicle. Each incident requires a human technician to respond to reset the vehicle.

Hundreds of AVs, or autonomous vehicles, run by Waymo and Cruise are currently on the roads in San Francisco, Phoenix and Austin.

The so-called “cone campaign” is aiming to steer AVs off the roads following recent incidents in which the vehicles have stalled and blocked traffic, hindered first responders and even hit and killed a dog.

Safe Street Rebel believes this system is dangerous and discourages the use of public transit. The group is encouraging more “coning” ahead of a hearing Thursday where the California Public Utilities Commission is expected to approve the expansion of AV operations.

The group describes itself as a decentralized group of activists.

“We want to either have AVs not on the city streets at all, or at least very limited. We see these as a threat and not a complement to more environmental mobility solutions like public transit and active mobility,” a member of the group said.

In separate statements, both Waymo and Cruise touted the safety of their systems, both expressing that coning is dangerous and causes traffic backups.

Waymo calls the practice vandalism, warranting notification of law enforcement for unsafe interference.

Now, ahead of the state hearing Thursday, the rebel group has declared a week of cones.