Investigating crimes is a real thing. But if you listen to Palo Alto police, you’d think it doesn’t exist. They just approved breaking the law when police aren’t present, which helps explain why Tesla engineering continues to fail at basic law and order.

“Had an officer observed the driver with the phone in their hand, they could have issued the driver an infraction ticket for violating California’s handsfree law,” writes Palo Alto PD Captain James Reifschneider.

“As no officer witnessed it happening in person at the time of occurrence, though, no ticket is forthcoming,” he told me via email.

There’s no question that Musk was in control of the vehicle: he was forced to stop his “Full Self Driving” system from running a red light partway through the livestream, and he reveals that he’s in the drivers seat by turning the camera on himself near the 30-minute mark.

Nazis love permanent improvisation, hate law and order, which is very much what is being described here. Police who claim there is no enforcement as they look away from obvious evidence are thus intentional enablers.

In fact, there’s an obvious argument to be made that Tesla is marketing towards people who are aiming to violate laws, ignore traffic signals. They posted a video of the CEO promoting lawless behavior with a product that after a decade is still unable to slow for traffic signals.

Expect Teslas to fail even more at its long sad history of running red lights, their owners arrrogantly distracted, killing themselves and those around them at an unnecessarily high rate.

A teenage human driver improves dramatically within one year, especially if they respect and honor the rules of the road.

Tesla by comparison is nowhere even close to achieving this. It only has become less safe the more it tries, the more data it gathers, due to poor engineering practices (explosive tech debt). In fact, Tesla quietly has gone on a hiring spree condradicting its “more data” strategy by squeezing underpayed hidden human workers to “scrape burned toast faster“.

It has failed to improve “driverless” capabilities despite promising for ten years its next year won’t be as bad, and has been caught disrespecting laws many times, causing at least 41 fatalities and nearly 1,000 crashes.

41 fatalities is 10 times worse than the OceanGate disaster. Can you name one other driver on the road who would be allowed to kill over 40 people? At least with OceanGate the CEO was killed by his fraud, putting an end to the constant broken promises.

Should police ignore a dangerous series of fatal crashes by the Tesla “driverless” product, just because an officer wasn’t present? Uber shutdown their entire “driverless” operation for far, far less (due to one fatality). Tesla keeps getting away with murder.

Other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?

Version 12 of Tesla software, judging by this video, appears to be such low quality (regression, worse than prior releases) that it can’t be shown at high resolution. It’s such a sad joke the CEO even is caught in his own video laughing at it.

We have a word for when Elon Musk pumps investors by saying just a little more of the same mistakes will make things better:

Advanced Fee Fraud.

It’s a dangerous crime we all have to watch as police say they can’t respond.

Reminds me of all the times Tesla brags that video feeds they create are for safety and should be trusted by police in catching criminals.

Los Angeles

Because of the high-tech nature of the Tesla, authorities say an on-board camera captured video of the suspect…. The three attempted murder charges are for the three people that were inside the Tesla.

Imagine police charging the CEO of Tesla for attempted murder every time a camera records one of his products trying to ignore a red light.

Now that makes a lot of sense.

Berkeley

Berkeley police investigating… got a break in the case because of an unexpected crime fighting tool: an external camera on a Tesla.

Crime fighting in Berkeley implies investigation of events in the past, which Palo Alto says they gladly ignore.

Los Gatos

Tesla’s cameras instrumental in Los Gatos…. Police tipped off as footage goes viral.

Palo Alto police clearly don’t want to play even the simplest of instruments.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the biggest shareholder of Twitter behind Elon Musk. And I mean they are literally behind Elon Musk.

The gist of it is a true story that they threatened back in 2011 to ban all Jewish birds trying to enter their country. But seriously, they told Twitter executives that unless Saudi government informants were on staff and Saudi money could steer management decisions (e.g. censor women, promote Nazism), there would be no tweeting allowed.

The latest news is thus related to an old case.

Between July and December 2015, Twitter granted the kingdom information requests “significantly more often” than most other countries at that time, including Canada, the UK, Australia and Spain, the lawsuit alleges.

On 5 November 2015, just days before Twitter was confronted by the FBI about its concerns about a Saudi infiltration of the company, it promoted Alzabarah – now a fugitive living in Saudi. In response, Alzabarah sent his Saudi government contact, al-Asaker, a note, conveying his “unimaginable happiness” for the promotion. The note, the lawsuit claims, is evidence that Alzabarah believed al-Asaker had “arranged” or “been influential” in connection to the promotion.

Once Twitter was made aware of the FBI’s concerns, it put Alzabarah on leave and confiscated his laptop, but not his phone, which he has used extensively to contact his Saudi state contacts. Twitter, the lawsuit alleges, “had every reason to expect that Alzabarah would immediately flee to Saudi Arabia, which is exactly what he did”.

Fast forward to today…

Does anyone really wonder why the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia now would want to use their platform to pick a huge fight with its critics at the ADL? Examples of ADL reports:

• Incendiary Sermons in Saudi Arabia
• Largest Book Fair in Saudi History Exhibits Antisemitic “Protocols” and Other Hateful Titles for Sale
• ADL Analysis Finds Saudi School Textbooks Still Teach Anti-Semitic Incitement and Hatred

Elon Musk seems to be inconsistent, yet he’s consistently a coin-operated mule for China and Saudi Arabia.

He backs Russia against Ukraine whenever China yanks his leash. He attacks speech and demands censorship of Jews when Saudis give him a pull.

So of course a lapdog of Saudi Arabia is jumping up and down pretending he is very upset with the ADL.

Lawsuit: https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:us:d204dd50-60eb-493a-b7d7-bc2c3c54641f
Exhibits: https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:us:4e84a8d4-76b3-48f9-b97d-8ed84a89f5e6

Allow me to divulge a bit of behind-the-scenes intrigue regarding the San Francisco Fire Department (SFFD): they have an undying affection for oversized, cumbersome, and fiscally extravagant trucks.

In fact, their adoration for these mammoth vehicles knows no bounds, leading them into a protracted skirmish with advocates for pedestrian safety. You see, the streets of San Francisco can’t undergo the sort of straightforward, commonsense traffic improvements (such as narrower lanes or strategically placed “bulb outs”) to enhance pedestrian safety. Why? Because the SFFD fervently argues that their trucks must meet the most exacting standards for a “proper job”.

SFFD Assistant Deputy Chief Ken Lombardi told KQED that the department isn’t necessarily opposed to buying more maneuverable equipment. “It’s not that simple,” he said. “We’re trying to buy a smaller engine. We just need to make sure that engine’s going to do the proper job.”

“Proper job,” you say? Well, when it comes to fitting snugly into the intricate urban tapestry, SFFD seems to be missing the mark in a rather grandiose fashion. In fact, there’s nary a trace of effort from them in the direction of procuring more petite fire-fighting vehicles.

Now, the question of whether the SFFD could swiftly acquire smaller trucks is akin to pondering if chickens possess lips – the answer is glaringly obvious! Yes, they could easily adopt compact vehicles, much like the rest of the civilized world.

Unfortunately, the SFFD’s progress report in this regard appears to be a blank slate, and as a consequence, the safety of pedestrians in San Francisco remains a precarious affair. This, quite ironically, places the fire department at the center of a contentious debate concerning the causes of pedestrian fatalities.

And now, armed with this vital context, the SFFD contends that the driverless Cruise vehicles failed to provide ample space for their sizable emergency trucks to maneuver and save a critically injured pedestrian.

Dear SFFD, it’s high time you caught on to the fact that your penchant for excessive size and this “minimum 20 foot clearance” notion is not only perilous but also entirely unworkable.

“Other cities and towns across the country also have small streets and sharp turns and have purchased specialized vehicles that can operate in these environments,” Rose said in his 17-page report.

Rose said those vehicles are not necessarily shorter, or lacking features of a more traditional engine, but are designed to make them more maneuverable.

The report was requested by Supervisor Scott Wiener, who has been frustrated by the Fire Department’s insistence on maintaining a 20-foot — or sometimes wider — minimum street width.

Enough of this nonsense already.

SFFD has not been “voicing concerns” about pedestrian safety — the department has been interfering with street redesigns that improve pedestrian safety. And the inexcusable part is that SFFD’s pushback against measures to calm traffic and make it safer for people to cross the street appears to be based on unfounded fears.

As a long-time constant critic of driverless engineering, I reluctantly have to admit Cruise is falsely accused here of obstruction by SFFD.

The actual obstructionist to saving pedestrian life has been the SFFD. They are apparently not based in any safety reality.

…”the most significant relationship to injury accidents” was street width. “As street widths widen, accidents per mile per year increases exponentially, and the safest residential street width are the narrowest (curb face).” […] SFFD Fire Chief Johanne Hayes-White also made the erroneous yet unchallenged claim in a recent Examiner article that 74 percent of pedestrians were at fault for their own injuries, though she later said she was “misinformed.”

Yeah, misinformed is putting it lightly.

They know the Bayview doesn’t even have any crosswalks, so how could a dead pedestrian there ever avoid being blamed given the city’s failure to provide any safe zones?! Nice one SFFD.

This fire department has displayed so much incompetence, generated a reputation on safety so bad, that it sets up an ignorant and unhinged robot company, of all things, to look like the good guys in a pedestrian safety fight.

I’ve looked at the evidence of this incident and what I see is SFFD trying to gin up their old dull “special city” saw about fear of clearance.

I must confess, I’ve never been a fan of taxis, and these mostly fraudulent driverless taxis have only intensified my dislike. However, it’s impossible to deny that the SFFD’s insistence on brandishing their antiquated “clearance room” banner in such a brazen manner is nothing short of absurd. It’s the very definition of hubris. If you take a gander at the video, it’s clear that Cruise isn’t in the wrong when it comes to clearances.

With AI entering the news scene this one particular showdown over a pedestrian fatality has garnered significant attention, unlike countless other pedestrian harm the SFFD may have been involved in. Exposure is a good thing, as a showy AI operation may just be the thing that ushers in greater scrutiny of the SFFD’s pedestrian policies.

Perhaps, just perhaps, Cruise, armed with their deep pockets and formidable legal team, can shine a spotlight on the SFFD’s longstanding errors in judgment. The streets need to be narrowed, and the SFFD’s obstructions and negligence should be subjected to meticulous examination.

In their legal battle, Cruise’s attorneys could argue that the SFFD has knowingly permitted casualties by insisting on unnecessarily wider streets and deploying heavy large vehicles clearly ill-suited for urban emergencies.