on an early The morning of April, around 4 a.m., a San Francisco Fire Department truck responding to a fire attempted to pass a double-parked garbage truck through the opposite lane. But a moving autonomous vehicle, driven by General Motors subsidiary Cruise without anyone in it, blocked the road. While a human could have backed up to clear the lane, the Cruise car stopped. The fire truck only passed the blockade when the garbage truck driver ran away from work to move his vehicle.
“This incident delayed SFFD’s response to a fire that resulted in property damage and personal injury,” city officials wrote in a filing with the California Public Utilities Commission. The city wrote that the fire service is concerned that cruise vehicles may stop in lanes too often, which could have a “negative impact” on fire service response times.
It’s the most unnerving of a handful of cruise vehicle incidents alleged by the city of San Francisco as officials object to parts of a proposed licensing program being drafted by the California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates ride-hail in the state. .
Tiffany Testo, a spokesperson for Cruise, confirmed the incident. She said the driverless car had correctly yielded to the oncoming fire truck in the opposite lane and contacted the company’s teleassistance workers, who are able to operate vehicles in distress from a distance. According to Cruise, who collects camera and sensor data from his test vehicles, the fire truck was able to move forward 25 seconds after it first encountered the autonomous vehicle. In a statement, Testo said Cruise “is working closely with first responders, including SFFD, and has been in contact with them about this encounter.” The council reports that the department has requested a meeting with Cruise about the incident, but has yet to take place.
SFFD and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, which regulates the city’s streets, did not respond to requests for comment.
In San Francisco, Cruise is just one of the dueling developers of self-driving cars who say they are working towards a safer future for driving. Waymo, an Alphabet company and a Google spin-off, and Zoox, now owned by Amazon, both have a presence on the city’s steep, winding roads, and locals don’t have to travel far to get full Jaguar I-Paces. to see sensors. Chevrolet Bolts and Toyota Highlanders trace routes through downtown and residential areas. Now Cruise is applying for a permit that will allow it to launch the state’s first self-driving taxi service. The sprawling, expensive science experiment could also change the way many urbanites navigate their cities.
San Francisco claims two more incidents: one, in late April, in which a cruise vehicle traveling through a work area stopped at a crosswalk and didn’t move for five minutes, blocking traffic; and another in April, caught on camera, in which police officers stopped a driverless cruise vehicle because the headlights were not on.
The filing comes as a state agency is in the process of writing rules that would allow Cruise to proceed with its plans to operate limited but paid ride-hail services in the state. In San Francisco, a new license would expand Cruise’s existing program. It currently allows hand-picked members of the public to take autonomous rides between 11pm and 5am, and only on the west side of the city, where there is less human trafficking. If the company gets a new license, it can start collecting fares for the trips, which would still take place at night and early morning, and not in rain or fog. It would mark the launch of the state’s first self-driving taxi service.
