A recent report indicates that a GM Cruise autonomous vehicle made several technical errors in an incident last October wherein a pedestrian was dragged 20 feet after colliding with the AV. The report, commissioned by GM, was issued by Exponent, an independent, third-party engineering consultancy group. Cruise is facing heavy scrutiny following the incident, and now faces multiple investigations.
According to the report, the incident occurred at approximately 9:29 p.m. local time at the intersection around Cyril Magnin Street where it transitions to 5th Street and Market Street in San Francisco. The AV, nicknamed Panini, was stopped at a red light at the intersection alongside a human-operated Nissan Sentra, the latter of which was also stopped at the red light. Both vehicles proceeded across Market Street when the light turned green. A pedestrian then proceeded across the crosswalk against a Do Not Walk signal, at which time she was struck by the Nissan and thrown in front of the AV. The Cruise AV struck the pedestrian before coming to an initial stop in less than 0.1 seconds, after which the AV proceeded forward roughly 20 feet, dragging the pedestrian before stopping. The pedestrian suffered injuries, but survived.
According to Exponent’s report, the Cruise AV could not have predicted the accident. The AV also slowed down marginally just before striking the pedestrian. However, the onboard sensors failed to locate the pedestrian after the collision, as much of her body was out of view of the lidar detectors, and the left wheel rolled over the woman before stopping.
The onboard systems mistook the collision as occurring from the side, rather than the front, and the AV moved roughly 20 feet to pull over to the curb, dragging the pedestrian. This constituted another error, as the AV was already at the curb.
The report indicated that there were no issues with the sensors, but added that a human driver would likely have performed better in this particular scenario.
Cruise stated that it has updated its software to address the issues identified in the report. The autonomous vehicle division maintains that AVs can significantly reduce the number and severity of car collisions.
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Comments
San Fran Ped walking against the light.
What are the odds ?
“Panini”, the robot, is responsible for it’s actions, the human, not so much.
The Pedestrian was at fault. End of story.
your forgetting where it happen at. Pedestrian is innocent to the people in that state, they don’t think like normal people do.
There seems to be plenty of blame to go around: the Pedestrian, the Human Driven Nissan and the Cruise.
Human crossing against a red light. A human driven car strikes the pedestrian throwing the pedestrian into the AV. AV stops in .1 seconds but detecting no one in the sensors proceeds to curb in about 20 ft. So the AV is at fault while pedestrians and human drivers are blameless?
The only fault with the AV is that the human’s that programmed the AV failed to program the AV to handle the situation, which is the whole problem with AV’s. Despite the name or acronym, AV’s are not autonomous. AV’s can only manage what they are programmed to handle. AV’s don’t think for themselves.
Had the human’s programmed the AV to know what any human infant of 8 months age knows, that objects are permanent and cannot simply disappear into thin air, maybe the AV would have not moved, put on it’s hazards, and waited for human assistance to resolve the “instantly undetectable pedestrian” error.
If a “typical” California driver had been driving the second car, Cruise vehicle, the pedestrian would have been dragged until she was free of the car and the driver would have left the scene.
It happens daily here in California.
you need to move.
Hate the politics and most of the people, but our weather is second to none. Drove my Harley today in 70 degree weather, and of course I pack.
73* in North Texas today, with bright sunshine. Not too sure how long that will last, but people are out enjoying it. Youngest daughter lives in LA, when I visit her it’s fun watching the folks work LA traffic. Some of the moves remind me of when I was growing up in South Texas.