San Francisco once again witnesses an incident involving an autonomous Cruise taxi, the driverless car company belonging to General Motors. Just a week ago, on July 11, one of these vehicles ran a red light and crossed a large five-lane avenue in broad daylight. This can be seen -although you have to look closely- in the video shared on Imgur.
The images were recorded by the interior camera of a car that was driving in the same direction as the robotaxi. The filming vehicle is in the left lane, while the self-driving car is moving further along in the second adjoining lane. When the traffic light turns red, the driverless specimen stops beyond the stop line.
At that moment the green light is activated for vehicles moving in the transverse direction. It is a busy road made up of five lanes. At one point, Cruiser’s car starts up unexpectedly and crosses it just before a bus comes by, nearly running him over. Luckily, it did not cause any accident, but that does not mean that it put road safety at risk.
It is not the first time that robotaxis deployed in the Californian city have generated controversial situations. Without going any further, last June, a Chevy Bolt EV also owned by Cruise blocked the path of an ambulance that was attending the victims of a shooting that took place in the Mission district of San Francisco. On other occasions, we have seen how police officers unsuccessfully tried to interact with these autonomous cars due to an incident related to traffic.
Some people are dissatisfied with the presence of these driverless cars, considering that they create road insecurity. To show their disagreement they have carried out some protest actions.
Activists belonging to the Safe Street Rebel group have called the so-called ‘Cone Week’, which takes place just a few days from the California Public Service Commission, in which it is intended to approve an unlimited expansion of Cruise and Waymo robotaxi services in San Francisco.
To complain about the situation, they surround the driverless taxi and place a traffic cone on the hood of the car, thus turning on its emergency lights. The car remains stopped, without continuing the march, as if it were damaged.
In the last decade, autonomous cars have increased in cities with the largest populations, and companies such as Waymo or Cruise have begun to use them as taxis in the US. However, the fact that its final inclusion depends on state regulatory bodies, and not on the citizens themselves, has caused a stir.
The behavior of the AVs has led to incidents, such as crossing the pedestrian crossing, blocking bus stops or running over a small dog that crossed in front of the car last May. In the brief published by the company, it was revealed that the car was operating in autonomous mode with a test driver supervising the vehicle from the driver’s seat.
Faced with the possibility of operating up to 24 hours a day, anti-car activists, along with the city’s police and fire chiefs have taken to the streets to show their disagreement.
