Ethan Baron
Silicon Valley, San Jose, Calif.
(TNS)
Oct. 24—The California Department of Motor Vehicles on Tuesday shut down problem-plagued Cruise autonomous taxis in San Francisco, saying the vehicles, involved in several troubling incidents, presented an "unreasonable risk to the public."
"This is a wake-up call to Cruise to pay closer attention to road safety," said Carnegie Mellon University engineering professor Phil Koopman, who likened the company's robotaxis to "teenage drivers not displaying good judgment."
San Francisco has become a proving ground for driverless taxi technology, with Cruise and Google spinoff Waymo testing out their vehicles on public roads. But Cruise's robotaxis in particular have come under fire from city officials over their propensity to stop and snarl traffic and obstruct emergency vehicles.
Removal of Cruise's driverless taxis from San Francisco's roads comes as officials in other Bay Area cities closely watch the technology's roll-out. Decisions on where the vehicles are ultimately deployed remains under the authority of state regulators. San Jose has said all it can do is hope to build positive relationships with robotaxi companies, and Oakland officials have told the utilities commission they know their city "may be next" for deployment.
To get its permits back for testing and deploying driverless taxis with no human backup, Cruise would have to provide the DMV with information about "how it has addressed the deficiencies that led to the suspensions," the agency said.
Since August, when the state Public Utilities Commission gave General Motors' Cruise a green light to take paid fares, there have been numerous reports of the cars' obstructing emergency vehicles and bottlenecking traffic. San Francisco Board of Supervisors president Aaron Peskin at the time described the autonomous technology on public roads as "a recipe for death" and said the vehicles were "not ready for prime time."
On Tuesday, Peskin applauded the DMV's move to suspend Cruise's permits as coming "better late than never." California never should have allowed their unlimited deployment in the first place, Peskin said.
Cruise spokeswoman Navideh Forghani said Tuesday that the company develops and deploys autonomous vehicles "in an effort to save lives."
The agency's suspension order to Cruise focuses on an accident early this month involving a pedestrian hit by another vehicle who then "fell into the path" of one of the company's robotaxis, which braked hard but ran over the woman, the order said. The car pulled over, dragging the victim 20 feet at 7 miles per hour and possibly injuring her further before stopping, the order said.
"Cruise's vehicles may lack the ability to respond in a safe and appropriate manner during incidents involving a pedestrian," the order said.
Cruise representatives the next day showed the DMV footage from the car's on-board camera, but it did not include the dragging, according to the order. "Cruise did not disclose that any additional movement of the vehicle had occurred," and the DMV only learned the woman was dragged from another agency, the order said. The DMV requested the additional footage from Cruise and received it 10 days after the initial meeting, according to the order.
Cruise disputed the DMV's allegation about the video, saying Tuesday that during the initial meeting, it showed the complete footage to the agency representatives multiple times.
Cruise can continue to operate vehicles with a backup human driver, the DMV said.
When the commission announced in August robotaxis in San Francisco could accept fares, commissioner John Reynolds — a lawyer for Cruise until joining the agency last year — said he and his colleagues did "not yet have the data to judge (the technology) against the standard human drivers are setting." But he said the vehicles could increase road safety, and companies and first responders needed to collaborate to address problems.
Just over a week after the commission gave the go-ahead to Cruise and Waymo to operate in San Francisco with no backup, the DMV cited "concerning incidents" and demanded Cruise "immediately reduce its active fleet of operating vehicles." Cruise agreed to reduce its operations to no more than 50 driverless vehicles in operation during the day and 150 at night.
That action by the DMV came shortly after a Cruise crash in San Francisco involving a robotaxi passenger suffering injuries after the vehicle was hit by a fire truck responding to an emergency scene. The federal highway-safety regulator is also probing Cruise, citing four San Francisco incidents.
In an August report, San Francisco Fire Chief Jeanine Nicholson, city police and transit officials said autonomous taxis, a majority from Cruise, had made nearly 600 documented unexpected stops since June 2022, "likely a fraction of actual incidents." Peskin said at the time the vehicles had interfered with emergency responders more than 60 times.
Cruise claims its robotaxis, when measured against humans driving ride-hail vehicles in comparable environments, have been involved in 65% fewer collisions.
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