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Prior to the decision, Cruise’s autonomous rides were limited to certain areas of The City between 10 p.m. Robocar companies put a strong emphasis (perhaps too strong) on avoiding errors for which they will be legally at fault over errors for which they will not face liability. In this case, though, Cruise should have played out this situation in both digital and real world simulations to detect it in advance.
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"If they would have listened to us in the first place, or engaged with us, or engaged with city officials before they were making those decisions, things would have turned out very differently." Also today, the California Public Utilities Commission, which initially granted Cruise permission to carry passengers, suspended the company’s permits as it carries out its own investigation of the company, CPUC spokesperson Terrie Prosper wrote in an email. Passengers will not be able to ride in San Francisco until the permits are reinstated. San Francisco officials led by City Attorney David Chiu have filed an administrative motion with theCalifornia Public Utilities Commission requesting it reconsider its resolutions granting Cruise and Waymo the ability to expand their commercial autonomous vehicle fleets. The DMV says Cruise representatives initially did not disclose or show footage of the vehicle's pullover maneuver after its initial stop, which "increased the risk of and may have caused, further injury to the pedestrian."
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City leaders strongly opposed the California Public Utilities Commission’s decision in August that allowed permitted autonomous vehicle companies to charge fares for passenger rides at any time of day in San Francisco. It’s likely to conclude that the software in the Cruise vehicle was unaware the pedestrian was being dragged by their vehicle, as it seems unlikely the system would wish to get out of the lane in that situation. It’s possible that the vehicle’s urge to clear the lane relates to the number of complaints that have been lodged about Cruise vehicles blocking lanes, which would be a tragic irony. It is common for robocars to remain in place blocking a lane when they are not 100% sure it is safe to move to another spot, so either the vehicle decided (incorrectly) that it was 100% sure, or perhaps the calculation has changed.
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Obviously it’s a terrible scenario to be prevented, but it’s also in the class of special situation where the behavior is very non-human and in a frightening way. While human drivers do regularly hit and drag others on the road, they are less likely to do it because they are oblivious to it. The suspensions mark a serious setback for the driverless vehicle industry, which has faced charges of under-regulation even as Cruise and others plan to expand to new cities across the US. Cruise is still permitted to operate robotaxis in San Francisco with a human safety driver behind the wheel—which is how the company initially began to test self-driving cars in the city. “The AV [autonomous vehicle] braked aggressively before impact and because it detected a collision, it attempted to pull over to avoid further safety issues,” Forghani said.
California DMV suspends Cruise's self-driving car permits, effective immediately - CNBC
California DMV suspends Cruise's self-driving car permits, effective immediately.
Posted: Tue, 24 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Despite those incidents, state regulators voted in August to allow self-driving car companies to expand their operations in San Francisco and other California cities. That prompted the city of San Francisco to file motions with the state demanding a halt to that expansion. The DMV said the Cruise vehicle tried to do a pullover maneuver while the victim was underneath the car, and they only learned about it from another department. The additional video was given to the DMV after a request was made, and they received it on Oct. 13. Following the CPUC's decision, Cruise agreed to a request by the DMV to cut their fleet of robotaxis in the city in half after two crashes, one of which involved an emergency vehicle. Shortly after the DMV's announcement, Cruise said it will be pausing operations of their autonomous vehicles in San Francisco.
The vehicles are approved to operate on public roads with a speed limit of no more than 65 mph and can also operate in rain and light fog. Waymo has had state authority to test autonomous vehicles on public roads with a safety driver since 2014 and received a driverless testing permit in October 2018. In a statement, the DMV said it notified the San Francisco-based company, a subsidiary of General Motors, that their autonomous vehicle deployment and driverless testing permits have been suspended, effective immediately. The decision does not impact the company's permit for testing with a safety driver.
"These Cruise vehicles are dangerous on our streets. When they see tragedy or see danger or there's an obstacle in their way, all they know how to do is freeze." "Ultimately, we develop and deploy autonomous vehicles in an effort to save lives," the company said in a statement. "This incident raises many serious concerns about the safety of these Cruise driverless vehicles," reads a San Francisco Fire Department report on the March incident published by Mission Local, a San Francisco news site. In response, the company reduced the number of vehicles it had deployed by half while the city investigated the incident. And on October 2nd, a hit-and-run in San Francisco launched a pedestrian in front of a driverless Cruise vehicle, trapping her underneath for some time.
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The luxury automaker recently began delivering the cars to customers with about 65 cars in the DMV's systems, according to a report by Fortune. With the delivery of these vehicles, Mercedes became the first automaker in US history to sell cars with Level 3 autonomous driving technology that doesn't require the owner to pay full attention while it's active. To date, it is the only automaker with government approval to sell the tech to the general public. (2/3) In that spirit, we have decided to proactively pause driverless operations across all of our fleets while we take time to examine our processes, systems, and tools and reflect on how we can better operate in a way that will earn public trust. In the days after the state regulator’s decision, several high-profile incidents — including a crash with a San Francisco Fire Department truck — prompted the DMV to direct Cruise to halve the number of its cars deployed on city streets.
Expert explains what's next for Cruise as California DMV suspends driverless car permits - KGO-TV
Expert explains what's next for Cruise as California DMV suspends driverless car permits.
Posted: Tue, 24 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
At a maximum speed limit of 30 miles per hour and can operate in light rain and light fog. Cruise has had state authority to test autonomous vehicles on public roads with a safety driver since 2015 and authority to test autonomous vehicles without a driver since October 2020. "When there is an unreasonable risk to public safety, the DMV can immediately suspend or revoke permits. There is no set time for a suspension," the DMV continued, adding that it has provided Cruise with a path back to approval. The DMV also noted that the permit revocation for AV use does not prohibit operation with a human safety driver. General Motors' robotaxi service Cruise has been barred from testing driverless vehicles on public roads in California.
DMV officials said that there is no set time frame for a suspension, but that the agency provided Cruise with “the steps needed to apply to reinstate its suspended permits.” It wasn’t immediately clear what those steps would include. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s California Public Utilities Commission on Thursday approved a measure to let robotaxi companies Cruise and Waymo massively expand deployment of their driverless vehicles on San Francisco streets. Sacramento – The California Department of Motor Vehicles today issued autonomous vehicle deployment permits to Cruise LLC and Waymo LLC, allowing the companies to charge a fee and receive compensation for autonomous services offered to the public.
Other automakers have used this approach for autonomous driving in the past and it's quickly becoming the standard. The cars are only available in California and Nevada and will only autonomously drive under certain circumstances. GM’s Cruise has had a rocky week, with California suspending the company’s license to operate as a result of misrepresentation by the company in an accident investigation. The DMV’s order of suspension, posted by news site Vice, accuses Cruise of failing to immediately disclose in an Oct. 3 meeting that its vehicle attempted to pull over after coming to an initial stop. In doing so, it dragged the pedestrian beneath the vehicle for about 20 feet at a peak speed of 7 mph.
It is where it has been field testing its commercial service of paid robotaxi trips. And a suspension could seriously impact the company’s ability to scale to new markets. Last week, federal auto safety regulators announced they were investigating Cruise following pedestrian injuries. The probe, spearheaded by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, was prompted by multiple reports involving pedestrian injuries and Cruise vehicles in recent months, and it concerns an estimated 594 self-driving Cruise vehicles, according to the filing.
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