
Cruise LLC, an autonomous car company that is testing driverless taxis in San Fransisco, was involved in an incident recently, the second in the last few months.
A woman crossing the street in the city was hit by a human-controlled car which launched her into the air and into the path of the driverless taxi that could not avoid her.
The first car departed the scene and police are still seeking the driver.
But the woman was pinned under the Cruise taxi which disabled itself upon sensing the accident.
She remained under the car until a fire rescue team was able to pull her out with the jaws of life and she was taken to a nearby hospital with serious injuries.
The police are investigating the accident and Cruise has reduced the number of its autonomous taxis on the street until the investigation concludes.
Video of the hit and run was captured by the Cruise and is being shared with the police to help them locate the responsible driver.
Cruise was already under scrutiny for its driverless cars since an August incident in which a robotaxi entered an intersection on a green light but failed to yield to an on-coming fire truck on its way to an emergency.
That accident occurred only a week after the city had approved the autonomous taxis to operate 24/7.
Any incident that autonomous cars are involved in makes the news even if they are not the cause of the initial accident.
The bar remains very high for riders to fully trust these cars, a bar that remains much higher than it is for human-controlled vehicles.
Leave a Reply