A pack of delivery robots caused a brief traffic jam in St. Petersburg, Russia, after filling up a pedestrian crossing as a group. A video of the same was shared across social media platforms, and it went viral. The video shows the suitcase-sized, six-wheeled rovers travelling together.
The woman named Priyanka revealed that the incident took place at India Square, Jersey City, New Jersey.
Sharing a video on Instagram, she called it an “absolute core memory”. She said that watching her parents experience these everyday futuristic things for the first time is “truly priceless”. “Watching Mummy and Papa encounter a food delivery robot rolling down the street was an absolute core memory!” she wrote as the caption of the video.
The autonomous robots were attempting to cross a busy road alongside local pedestrians. Drivers in approaching vehicles came to a complete stop to let the entire line pass safely. The unusual scene quickly sparked reactions online, with the internet comparing the group of small rovers to a class of young schoolchildren out on a field trip. Click here to watch the video. “This is sped up; look how fast the people are moving. They’re definitely amusing to look at, unlike human-shaped machines,” another user wrote. “A whole squad of delivery robots deadlocked at a St. Petersburg crossing. The future is here, but it requires adult supervision to cross the street,” a third user shared their opinion. In the past few years, automated food and package delivery has grown increasingly common across the world.
Because such robots are programmed to operate with extreme caution, they were moving slowly through the crosswalk.
“A whole squad of delivery robots stuck at a pedestrian crossing like lost schoolkids,” one user wrote.
Earlier this month, an Indian woman living in the United States came across a similar automated robot and shared her parents’ reaction when they saw it on the streets for the first time in their lives.
