Earlier last month, a Cruise AV test vehicle partially blocked the fire truck from moving forward. This is one of several events that will allow San Francisco officials to pause, as the proposed permit program is for autonomous vehicles.
The incident took place in April at about 4 am when emergency workers were answering the call, Kazinform reports. Wired. They were stopped by a double-parked garbage truck, and as they passed it, a Cruise AV test vehicle coming from the other direction stopped next to the garbage truck and completely blocked the road.
“This incident slowed down the SFFD’s firefighting efforts, resulting in property damage and personal injuries,” city officials wrote in a statement to the California Utilities Commission.
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A Cruise spokesman confirmed the incident to Wired and said the vehicle acted as planned, adapted to an oncoming fire truck and contacted the company’s remote assistance staff. According to the company, the fire truck was closed for 25 seconds.
However, the blockage was not removed until the garbage truck driver fled from work to move the vehicle. Some noted that if the Cruise AV was manned, it could simply be backed up to pass the fire truck. It is important to repeat that every second counts when an emergency responder goes to a call.
The San Francisco Fire Department also confirmed the incident, saying that although it had been negotiating training with electric and autonomous vehicle manufacturers before the pandemic, “we have been successful with EV drills and continue industry training on autonomous vehicles. »
This is just one of three incidents that San Francisco officials have filed in their objections to parts of the permit program developed by the California Utility Commission.
Second, there was the well-known story of a cruise car passing without a headlight at night. The third was in late April and involved another cruise vehicle that stopped at a pedestrian crossing passing through the work area and stopped for five minutes.
These events illustrate the difficulties in designing autonomous vehicles, so-called extreme situations, where something unlikely or unexpected happens on the road. Although a human driver can make a decision, it is more difficult for autonomous vehicles to respond to these events.
The complexity of these advanced situations is so great that some in the autonomous vehicle industry have acknowledged that no automaker will ever be able to create a fully autonomous Level 5 vehicle.
