In August, 60 self-driving vehicles operated by GM’s Self-Driving Cruise Traffic congestion across San Francisco. Over a month later, the problem persists and it’s really starting to annoy people.
Cruise vehicles blocked a bus lane and blocked traffic at the busy intersection of Sacramento and Leavenworth in the city’s posh Nob Hill neighborhood. At the same time and just a few blocks away, a Cruise vehicle was also blocking Sacramento Road near Mason Street Another was blocking an intersection in the Cathedral Hill neighborhood. A video shared on Reddit showing residents a bit confused with keeping their phones is not uncommon. Are from SFGate:
“Come on, we have to get started,” one person can be heard shouting in the background of the video.
“No driver!” another person answered.
Another Cruise vehicle caused a similar disruption near the corner of Geary Avenue and Franklin Street at around 10:19 p.m. that same day, per KRON4. According to reports, the autonomous vehicle veered into a bus lane and stopped just inches from the Muni bus, forcing the driver to reroute and move around it. Outlets reported that another Cruise vehicle stopped midway at Sacramento and Mason streets, with flashing lights and music playing from the radio.
No accidents or injuries have been reported. A Cruise spokesman told SFGate that stalled vehicles were recovered after a 20-minute hiatus due to technical problems. However, just because there have not been any (yet) crashes due to stalled vehicles does not mean that unmanned vehicles stopping in city traffic are safe. In May, the unmanned Cruise cars that stalled helped fire trucks respond to fires, Wired report.
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It took operators at Cruise almost half a minute to remotely get the vehicle moving and out of the firetruck’s way. The slow down contributed to loss of property and injuries from the fire. These vehicles are wandering the streets with no training provided to first responders as to what they can do in such situations, a San Francisco Fire Department spokesperson told Wired.
San Francisco has turned into a sort of unofficial testing ground for self-driving vehicles. Waymo, an Alphabet company and Zoox from Amazon have presence in the city, and Tesla is recreating the city using the Unreal Engine in order to better train its so-called “full self-driving mode,” according to Electrek. San Francisco has established itself as a tech hub, but running a city-wide test isn’t without risk. A Cruise vehicle hit a Toyota Prius in June and in May, a whistleblower came first arrive The Wall Street Journal This raises concerns about the company’s dedication to safety.
California has allowed passengers to ride in driverless cars car since June. The travel vehicles are working using beta testers in a small area of the city and are only available at certain times of day and in perfect weather conditions.
