As reported by GM Authority back in June 2023, San Francisco Fire Chief Jeanine Nicholson claimed that Cruise AV units have the ability to interfere with emergency vehicles, and that her city isn’t ready for a mass rollout of self-driving robotaxi service. Now, a Cruise AV unit has been captured blocking a fire truck in San Francisco, and creating a traffic jam.
In a post to social media, a Cruise AV example was filmed blocking an entire road in San Francisco and preventing the emergency response vehicle from getting through. In fact, the fire truck was forced to back up into the intersection before the autonomous vehicle moved out of the way.
It’s worth noting that this isn’t the first time a Cruise AV unit has been spotted blocking firefighters, as GM Authority covered such an occurrence way back in May 2022. Following this event, a Cruise AV was even involved in a collision with a fire truck at a traffic light.
“They’re not ready for prime time,” San Francisco Fire Chief Jeanine Nicholson previously stated. “I’m not against the technology. I understand it’s important and it’s the way the industry is going. But we need to fix what’s not working right now, before they are unleashed on the rest of the city. We have 160,000 calls a year. We don’t have the time to personally take care of a car that’s in the way when we’re on the way to an emergency.”
.@Cruise celebrated by blocking a fire truck at an active scene today at 24th and Valencia.
The firetruck was forced to back up into the intersection so the cruise could move. https://t.co/aVQizcePeW pic.twitter.com/J39M898jQA
— DylanY (@Dylan_Why_) August 12, 2023
The timing of this incident comes as Cruise, General Motors’ self-driving subsidiary, was just given the go-ahead to expand its self-driving services in California. More specifically, the robotaxi units are now permitted to operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Previously, Cruse AVs were only allowed to operate in designated neighborhoods at specific hours, with some providers allowed to offer only free rides.
Beyond The Golden State, Cruise also recently began testing in Atlanta, Georgia as well as in Charlotte, North Carolina. This makes Atlanta and Charlotte the eighth and ninth cities that the self-driving subsidiary currently operates in.
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Comments
The fire truck should have pushed the “bug” out of the way.
…..and had it impounded and send Cruise the bill..
I’d go further, make the CEO of cruise get it out of impound in person. Do not release the car to anyone but the CEO. Make it terrifically inconvenient and maybe cruise will find a solution sooner rather than later.
Headline says, ‘indecent ‘ (incident?). That slip says a lot. Read article that number of Cruises in SF is being reduced.
The number of people using them are leaving San Fran for other pastures. They can find less manure elsewhere.
All of this so the occupants of the Cruise can spend their time and attention on their Facebook and Instagram pages., or sneaking in quickies…
Or go out and get crocked or high. Meanwhile the folks who enjoy the freedom and pleasure of driving have to give it up so the irresponsible can have their debauchery.
Can we get somebody literate to write the headlines….
Dangerous and idiotic. All the more reason to scrap this experiment once and for all. How many have to die before this goes away. Enough of this techy trash. Let’s get back to reality.
Just smash right thru the POS
I’m very surprised that after literally millions of miles things like this are still happening. On the other hand, things like this are very easy to fix, quickly. And we’ll continue the inevitable, unstoppable, and enormously beneficial march of progress toward EV and AV.
The naysayers to this tech may as well go to the beach and forbid the tide from coming in. They’re kind of funny….
Oh boy, another techy who just praises all tech, but never applies reality, or wants to deal with its consequences. After all, those consequences are just hiccups during the march of “progress”.
What reality asks the techy? The reality that these WILL kill people. But hey, all technology is progress, and all progress is automatically good…..that is until it kills someone close to you.
That’s the woke mentality for you.
And you’re kind of naive. Perhaps you should use these pieces of trash as your and your family’s only mode of transportation for a year and come back and tell us how it worked for you.
Actually as a techie I’d say you are completely wrong, It is not trivial. Essentially ALL of the rules created to date for “driving” the vehicle must be suspended and a completely new set of rules must be established in an “emergency” situation. Problem is those millions of miles it took to create the rule set were not emergency. So they would need to run millions more miles IN an emergency scenario with supervision. And that is not viable. It would take forever to accumulate that many miles where there happened to be an ambulance or fire truck approaching. And this is because the systems are not adaptive like humans. Your driving instructor told you to get out of the way if a fire truck approaches. And if that means driving off the road, into an intersection with a red, blah blah blah you do it. You find a way. Ironically just recently I had an ambulance coming my way on a onramp. We both pulled over the curb. Would an AV go over a curb?
If these systems “arent as adaptable as humans” shouldn’t we then have humans driving? 🧐 not my words
Think this sucks, wait until the Orgin hits the street with no manual controls.
Breaking news: GM’s Cruise autonomous vehicle to cut fleet in half after 2 crashes in San Francisco.
There is an alternate to AV vehicles, it’s called “TAXI SERVICE” that has far more intelligence than even the best AV. This service has been going on for 100’s of years from the horse and buggy to the present day.