A group of driverless Cruise robotaxis created a fiasco in San Franciso on Tuesday evening after the autonomous cars suddenly stopped working and blocked traffic for a few hours.
The incident happened around midnight on a street in the city's Fillmore district, at the corner of Gough and Fulton streets, and some images of the debacle the stalled robotaxis have caused appeared in a Reddit post.
The images shared by the redditor show that at least five driverless robotaxis were at fault for the roadblock that lasted for a couple of hours before employees were able to move the vehicles and ease traffic. As it turns out, Cruise employees were quick to arrive, it only took them twenty minutes to show up, but moving the cars was the actual challenge.
“It was a pretty surreal event. Humans had to come and manually take the cars away. Cruise should get fined [...] for blocking the street off for so long. They even made it so the street sweeper couldn’t hit an entire block,” redditor seansinha shared.
The incident, which goes to show that driverless vehicles can still experience issues in real-life circumstances, was acknowledged by a Cruise spokesperson in a statement to TechCrunch, but no details were provided as to what caused it.
“We had an issue earlier this week that caused some of our vehicles to cluster together,” said the spokesperson. “While it was resolved and no passengers were impacted, we apologize to anyone who was inconvenienced.”
Cruise, General Motor’s AV subsidiary, has been dubbed the new frontrunner in the race to autonomy. Driverless Cruise robotaxis started test operations in San Francisco in February and offered free rides for a few months. It only began commercial operation, meaning it now charges clients, last week.
The autonomous rides have no human safety driver on board but they operate only on certain streets between 10PM and 6AM. There is also a speed restriction, as they can’t exceed 30 mph (48.3 kph).
The images shared by the redditor show that at least five driverless robotaxis were at fault for the roadblock that lasted for a couple of hours before employees were able to move the vehicles and ease traffic. As it turns out, Cruise employees were quick to arrive, it only took them twenty minutes to show up, but moving the cars was the actual challenge.
“It was a pretty surreal event. Humans had to come and manually take the cars away. Cruise should get fined [...] for blocking the street off for so long. They even made it so the street sweeper couldn’t hit an entire block,” redditor seansinha shared.
The incident, which goes to show that driverless vehicles can still experience issues in real-life circumstances, was acknowledged by a Cruise spokesperson in a statement to TechCrunch, but no details were provided as to what caused it.
“We had an issue earlier this week that caused some of our vehicles to cluster together,” said the spokesperson. “While it was resolved and no passengers were impacted, we apologize to anyone who was inconvenienced.”
Cruise, General Motor’s AV subsidiary, has been dubbed the new frontrunner in the race to autonomy. Driverless Cruise robotaxis started test operations in San Francisco in February and offered free rides for a few months. It only began commercial operation, meaning it now charges clients, last week.
The autonomous rides have no human safety driver on board but they operate only on certain streets between 10PM and 6AM. There is also a speed restriction, as they can’t exceed 30 mph (48.3 kph).