An autonomous prototype owned by GM subsidiary Cruise has had yet another embarrassing run-in with an emergency vehicle in San Francisco.
According to WIRED, the San Francisco Fire Department was attempting to respond to an emergency at around 4 a.m. when it happened upon a double-parked garbage truck. The fire truck attempted to go into the oncoming lane to pass the garbage truck when it happened a driverless Chevy Bolt EV that was sitting stationary in the lane. While a human driver would have had the wherewithal to clear the lane for the emergency vehicle, the autonomous vehicle allegedly stayed put, blocking the firetruck until the garbage truck driver ran out from their workplace to move their vehicle.
“This incident slowed SFFD response to a fire that resulted in property damage and personal injuries,” city officials wrote in a California Public Utilities Commission filing that was viewed by WIRED.
This mishap, which occurred sometime in April, is the second widely publicized encounter between a Cruise prototype and an emergency vehicle that we’ve seen in recent months. A couple of months ago, a viral video showed the San Francisco Police Department attempting to pull over an unmanned Cruise prototype when the vehicle decided to take off from the officer and drive through an intersection. In a prepared statement issued in response to that clip, Cruise said it works closely with local authorities to ensure its vehicles are adhering to local laws.
“Our AV yielded to the police vehicle, then pulled over to the nearest safe location for the traffic stop, as intended,” the company said at the time. “An officer contacted Cruise personnel and no citation was issued.”
“We work closely with the SFPD on how to interact with our vehicles, including a dedicated phone number for them to call in situations like this,” the company added.
A spokesperson for Cruise confirmed the incident involving the fire truck in a statement sent to WIRED, but said the vehicle actually did correctly yield to the oncoming firetruck. Camera and sensor data pulled from the vehicle indicated the fire truck was able to proceed past the blocked section of road after about 25 seconds.
GM plans to apply lessons learned from the development of its Chevy Bolt EV-based test vehicles to the Cruise Origin, a self-driving robotaxi that will enter production at its Factory Zero plant in Michigan in 2023. In the meantime, Cruise will continue to test its Bolt EVs on public roads in San Francisco.
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Comments
Wait a second. The vehicle at fault here was the garbage truck who was illegally parked. The Bolt stopped and pulled to the side as is the law. The title of this article is completely inaccurate.
Yes, Cruise needs to use this as a learning opportunity and I have no doubt they will but let’s place blame appropriately with the garbage truck driver.
The Bolt was blocking the free lane. The garbage truck probably was idle so it could receive the trash.
If garbage trucks (and delivery trucks, and taxis) had to park out of traffic every time they serviced a house, it would take probably a day to service a single block. This is true in any city, and even a lot of suburbs.
Sure the garbage truck was in the way, but at the same the time this a perfect example of why AV’s should not be on the road. AV’s can only do what they are programmed to do. Any real life situation the falls outside of the AV’s programming, the AV cannot handle.
Again, sure the garbage truck was in the way, but had a human been driving the Bolt, the human driver would have backed up and moved out of the way to handle the real life situation of a double parked vehicle.
Driving around garbage trucks or delivery vehicles should probably be programmed into an AV. This is something literally everyone has to deal with on the road rather frequently.
This is just bad programming.
There are several videos out there of Cruise vehicles driving around garbage trucks. The problem is the emergency vehicle was approaching at the same time.
Uh, my brother used to drive an ambulance. I can remember him many times relating to us about stupid drivers failing to yield even after the siren and loud hailer blasting at them. They just froze, forcing him into opposing lanes.
Actually it clearly says the Bolt just stopped in the lane. If software or a person were capable, they could have reversed to clear the lane.
It is only going to be a matter of time before one of these drones cause an accident or causes death/injury. In EMS terms, seconds can make all the difference. This thing should have been impounded and held until it can be explained to a judge why it is safe to allow on city streets.
as usual, teslas are ahead of the curve. they have been crashing into stationary emergency vehicles for years.
True enough, but at least a Tesla always has some dummy in it that we call the driver, and they are blamed for the accident.
Send cruise the bill for the fire property damage, the medical bills for those in the fire, and a nice little 10K fine for blocking the truck.
Why only $10k? Shouldn’t it be more in line with what an accident lawyer would demand when someones life is threatened by your negligence?
I’d think a million dollars would be more in line with that.
Cruise is using real life to iron out bugs at the publics safety. Not ready for primetime.
that is why popy only ventures out late night and is back in the garage before dawn.
Shoulda loaded the Bolt into the garbage truck. Problem solved.
Garbage truck was waiting for the load!!
In the “rush” to go green there will be many “unintended consequences” that will be interesting.
Wow, I have seen many human drivers block the road because they didn’t know what to do. Saw a car getting pulled over in the left lane. He just stopped in the left lane, no shoulder. I have also seen cars at a stop lot with an emergency vehicle behind them. They refused to move till the light changed. This was a good learning opportunity for software engineers. They won’t make the same mistake twice like the human drivers!
So let me get this straight, the garbage truck with a driver is blocking the lane and fails to move while the fire truck pulls into the opposing lane to a stopped AV vehicle and the AV is at fault? I don’t get it. The AV is supposed to run up over the curb while the refuge truck is not required to pull ahead until the emergency vehicle clears? Seriously?
AVs need to be able to handle this if they’re going to be fully autonomous.