subsidiary of a cruise line General Motors CorporationCalifornia officials ordered the company to cut its active fleet in half after one of the company’s robotaxis collided with a fire truck in San Francisco late Thursday, injuring its occupants.
The California Department of Motor Vehicles said it was investigating recent “related incidents” involving the self-driving company’s vehicles. The DMV said in a statement that until the investigation is complete and the company takes “appropriate corrective actions to improve road safety,” Cruise will have no more than 50 driverless vehicles operating during the day and no more than 50 at night. 150 vehicles. statement late Friday.
Cruise reports latest accident in series of reports social media post Friday.
“One of our cars entered the intersection on a green light and was hit by an emergency vehicle that appeared to be on its way to the emergency scene,” Cruise said in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. Crews said the accident happened just after 10 p.m. in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco.
“Our vehicle was carrying a passenger who was treated at the scene and transported by ambulance with injuries we do not believe are serious,” the company said.
The collision at the intersection of Turk and Polk streets Thursday night occurred while the fire truck was operating in “Code 3” emergency mode, the San Francisco Police Department said. This means the lights of the fire truck, including the steady red light ahead and the siren, are activated.
The incident raised questions about why the vehicle didn’t know to stop and wait for emergency vehicles, and why it didn’t notice traffic as it crossed the intersection. In its statement, the DMV warned it could suspend or revoke testing and deployment permits if it “determines that there is an unreasonable risk to public safety.”
Video from the local ABC network in San Francisco show accident.
Last week, the California Public Utilities Commission voted 3-1 to allow Cruise and Alphabet Corporationof Waymo Increase the areas in cities where self-driving cars can be driven without a safety driver, and charge passengers a fee.
read more: Google’s Waymo and Cruise get approval to expand in San Francisco
The city of San Francisco, led by City Attorney David Chiu, on Wednesday asked state regulators to suspend their decision to approve Cruise and Waymo’s expansion.
“San Francisco would be severely harmed if cruise lines were allowed to expand in the city, regardless of geographic area, hours of service, or fleet size,” the city wrote in its statement. 84 pages of motion. “As the Commission has acknowledged, the performance of Cruise’s driverless self-driving vehicles, currently in limited deployment and testing, has interfered with the operations of first responders, public transit, street construction workers, and the flow of traffic.”
Recent social media posts have also shown some strange behavior by Cruise’s self-driving car.A video released on Monday shows a car drive across the crosswalk Another shows off cruiser even as kids cross the road stop at the intersection There are cars behind.
— With assistance from Malathi Nayak and Shiyin Chen
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