Even for San Francisco, this is pretty San Francisco.
Let's check the story:
A beloved neighbourhood cat was killed after being run over by a driverless taxi, sparking fresh backlash against the vehicles.
KitKat, a brown tabby, was run over last week by a Waymo driverless car, which left the scene without stopping.
Driverless cars after hitting a stray cat in San Francisco:
You can't exactly blame the robot for getting out of there. This is San Francisco we're talking about. It has been branded "the most childless major U.S. city," with a core demographic of far-left progressives without families — which is to say, the archetypal cat owner.
And yes, the neighborhood is absolutely 100% staying true-to-type in this scenario:
The killing has triggered an outpouring of grief from members of the community and raised questions over whether autonomous vehicles should be allowed to operate in their neighbourhood.
Local residents have built a shrine outside the corner shop where KitKat was a fixture, with mourners leaving devotional candles, handwritten notes and a jug of milk.
That's no exaggeration, folks. They've genuinely built a grief-stricken, mournful shrine for the deceased cat.
The story was even worthy of a spot on the local news:
Waymo, meanwhile, claims that while its vehicle "was stopped to pick up passengers, [the cat] darted under our vehicle as it was pulling away."
But local residents aren't happy about it. Indeed, a crowd of protesters gathered outside KitKat's former bodega home this week, chanting "KitKat! KitKat! KitKat!" One local activist vowed that the issue would not go away:
Waymo thinks that they can just sweep this under the rug and we will all forget, but here in Mission, we will never forget our sweet KitKat.
The company, meanwhile, is plainly trying to manage the PR fallout:
'We send our deepest sympathies to the cat's owner and the community who knew and loved him... and we have made a donation to a local animal rights organisation in his honour,' the spokesperson said.
Waymo shelling out over a dead cat to appease the woke mob like:
Good luck with all this, San Francisco.
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