Cruise AV Rear-Ends City Bus In San Francisco
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After 500,000 driverless miles and counting, Cruise, GM’s autonomous driving subsidiary, managed to avoid any major incidents, barring the occasional blocking of traffic. Now, it appears as though a Cruise AV may be at fault in a recent accident in California.
Multiple social media posts show a Cruise AV rear-ended a city bus in San Francisco, California. In response to the incident, Cruise stated that there were no passengers riding in the vehicle when the mishap took place, that there were no injuries related to the accident, and that the Cruise AV was cleared from the scene.
Hey @Cruise come get your guy Souffle pic.twitter.com/n10NMQloVA
— bauer (@d_bau13) March 23, 2023
It’s worth noting that Cruise has been making headlines for the wrong reasons for quite some time now. As reported by GM Authority, there have been several cases were the Cruise AVs made a questionable stop in the middle of a road or intersection for an unknown reason.
In case you missed it, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) opened a formal safety probe into Cruise based on these types of reports, where the autonomous robotaxi units were seen excessively braking or blocking traffic. Notably, no major injuries or fatalities directly-related to Cruise have been reported to date.
This afternoon, one of our vehicles made contact with the rear of a Muni bus. No injuries were reported, there were no passengers present in the Cruise AV, and it has been cleared from the scene.
— cruise (@Cruise) March 24, 2023
Meanwhile, Cruise AVs have started to roam the streets of Phoenix, Arizona and Austin, Texas, as the company seeks to expand its service to several more markets this year. In addition, the Cruise Origin robotaxi has begun testing in San Francisco, but with a driver on board, while Cruise is waiting for the city to green-light testing of driverless Origin units.
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Outlaw these driverless vehicles now! They are a safety menace! If they can’t navigate around a huge city bus, there are problems!
I wonder what what the rate of bus rear end accidents is for human drivers considering the miles driven?
The other thing to think about is that there will be a team of engineers (if not several) that will look into what happened and why, and implement modifications.
I am not at all excited for a driverless world but these cars are safer than human drivers as they are and are only going to improve.
The problem is that the public will hold these drones to a higher standard than humans. Also you may be able to get these drones perfected for 99.9 % of driving scenarios, but it will be that. 1 % scenario that will maim or kill someone and these things will be yanked off the streets.
Who says they are safer, I doubt there is enough data to make that sweeping conclusion!
Before someone is killed!
Compared to the frequency of someone getting killed by another human driver? What happens more? What about impaired driving?
H.A.L. is taking over the streets and there is no way to stop it.
2023 A Street Oddesy
Dave, “I know that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I’m afraid that’s something I cannot allow to happen.”
Stupid bus.
It has taken decades to reduce significantly, but not eliminate, the mid-air collisions but Cruise believes that they have solved the problem at the street level. C’mon!
Why is automation automatically assumed to be the answer for everything?
As an avid motorcyclist, I’m at least happy it hit a bus, and not me sitting in a left turn lane or at a stop sign. The motorcycle industry doesn’t even have a seat at the table when autonomous vehicle guidelines and regulations are being hashed out. You think this doesn’t concern me and every other bike rider out there?
We have long ago accepted serious injury and death as the price to pay for allowing the general public to drive. Here is a technology that is already quite safe yet is still in early development.
I get that’s it’s more comforting to rely on other’s personal responsibility than it is to rely on corporate responsibility but if this is safer, I don’t see why it shouldn’t continue to develop. That continued development includes accounting reliably for all aspects of motorcycle traffic.
It may take 3 years, it may take 10 years, it may never happen. But why call for the removal and cancelation of a technology before it has been fully fledged out when it’s already safer?
Looking at the crumple on the Cruise vehicle’s hood, it was more than a “nudge” contact. How is it even remotely possible for Cruise to miss a bus??!! I look forward to hearing the underlying story here.
CLC How is iteven remotely possible for a human driver to miss a buss? but it happens all the time, every day. I look forward to hearing your underlying reasons why so many human drivers do far mor crazy ridiculous mishaps
So what’s gained by robotic cars crashing into other cars or running over pedestrians?
Likelihood of one happening over the other. Why do (almost) all GM vehicles have automatic emergency braking now? Because most human drivers simply aren’t that good
Considering the 100’s of millions of miles driven by humans, we do pretty well.
The bigger issue is distracted driving, which is a huge epidemic, and the handing out of licenses and permits like candy, with no system that routinely checks and tests drivers.
The only benefit I can see having an autonomous CORVETTE in 20 years when I am 90 years old assuming I cannot drive and I live that long is having it drive me to COFFEE and CARS.
Imagine all the money that could have been spent improving actual products instead of this money pit that will eventually be cancelled for obvious reasons.
Forget about the debate over technology. Has anyone considered the hundreds of thousands if not millions of jobs lost if autonomous taxis and semis take over. The replacement of relatively low skilled jobs with technology just increases the number of hopeless welfare recipients, shrinking the middle class by moving so many down to poverty status. Whether it’s cashiers at Walmart or taxi and semi drivers, where do they turn when their jobs are replaced by technology.
I’m writing this as someone who worked nearly 50 years as an engineer in technology. My work helped increase productivity by reducing scrap and reduced pollution, but did not displace workers. We really need to consider what’s going to happen to humanity if technology continues to replace humans.
This technology may eliminate the driver, however, there are a lot of jobs created to develop and support autonomous vehicles.
I do not like these vehicles on the road either and when permission is granted, there better be a big list of safety demands by the local jurisdiction. While under development, a human needs to be in the vehicle.
I also happen to read about two of G.M. Cruze’s cars that drove thru a blocked-off intersection that was blocked off with caution tape because of down cables from a storm and got caught up in them now a human being was driving the cars that wouldn’t have happened.
Why not employ the best of both worlds by incorporating front and rear collision avoidance sensors that apply brakes automatically using proximity and speed to avoid collisions. Also side sensors to warn driver of vehicle next to them