You've probably seen the little delivery robots rolling along city sidewalks. They're supposed to steer safely around people and obstacles. In Chicago, two of them — from two different companies — smashed straight through the glass of public bus shelters within days of each other. Glass scattered across the sidewalks where people stand and wait.
Both companies called it 'rare' and 'isolated' and left it there. Neither actually explained what went wrong. One bragged it had driven over a million miles without trouble — which is cold comfort to anyone who'd been standing at that shelter. The truth is nobody really knows why it happened, and nobody had a plan for when it did.
So how does it touch you? These machines share the sidewalk with your kids, your parents, your neighbor in a wheelchair. This time the only casualty was a pane of glass, and no one was hurt. But 'rare' and 'isolated' isn't a safety system — it's a press line. The honest question is what happens when it's a person standing there, not a bus shelter.