Over the weekend, a GM Cruise converted Chevy Bolt without a driver was pulled over by San Francisco Police. In an unexpected turn, the car “bolted” to a safe spot. Cruise responded.
The original Instagram poster noted that this occurred in the Richmond District of San Francisco last week.
b.rad916: Confused SFPD pulling over an #autonomousvehicle in the Richmond District!! Then it tries to take off!! 😆 🚔 1 week
GM’s Cruise vehicles have been operating autonomously in San Francisco at night, giving rides to employees around the city.
Cruise vehicles have been operating in San Francisco autonomously for months seemingly without incident and have recently been joined by Google’s Waymo vehicles.
Welcome to the future. Cop pulls over driverless car (because no lights?) Then Cruise goes on the lamb. (via https://instagram.com/tv/Cb1q-vggFn9/)
There are some great takes in the twitter feed:
Brian @NHTSArecalls @NHTSAgov
Yall better check on this. If these vehicles can't properly turn on lights when driving at night that's a bigger deal than Tesla owners talking through an external speaker, that's only purpose is to get pedestrian attention. 🙄
Franklin Tabor
I think the bigger deal here is that they didn't even get to rough anyone up. Will someone please think of the police for once
Update: Cruise just responded:
@Cruise
Chiming in with more details: our AV yielded to the police vehicle, then pulled over to the nearest safe location for the traffic stop, as intended. An officer contacted Cruise personnel and no citation was issued. We work closely with the SFPD on how to interact with our vehicles, including a dedicated phone number for them to call in situations like this.
Electrek’s take:
Wow, this is quite interesting and it seems Cruise’s vehicle responded as intended though it is still uncertain why it was pulled over in the first place.
What do you think, it this a victory for autonomous vehicles or something to be concerned about?