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This photo taken on November 30, 2021 shows an interior view of one of the self-driving taxis being used in a technology demonstration in the United Arab Emirates capital Abu Dhabi to ferry passengers to nearby Yas Island.
Who gets a ticket in a self-driving car? Turns out no one knows, San Francisco police recently learned.
Earlier this month, a pedestrian saw a Cruise LLC self-driving vehicle being pulled over by San Francisco police, took a video and posted it on Instagram.
Images released on April 2 show a patrol following the vehicle following stopping it. As an officer exits the patrol car and walks toward the vehicle, a voice can be heard saying, “There’s no one in it.”
The officer looks through the driver’s side window and appears to try to open the door, then walks back to his car. The car then proceeds to a nearby intersection, runs a green light, and comes to a stop on the other side of the intersection with its hazard lights flashing.
The patrol, turret flashing, pulls up behind the vehicle. Two officers get out, walk toward the vehicle from both sides and look out the windows as bystanders laugh. A woman’s voice is heard: “My God, finally!”
It’s not clear why the self-driving car stopped. A San Francisco Police public information officer did not immediately respond to phone and email messages seeking further information.
The traffic stop came two months following Cruise, majority-owned by General Motors Co., began offering rides in its self-driving vehicles to the public in San Francisco.
Cruise responded to the video on Twitter, saying that the “AV yielded to the police vehicle, then stopped at the nearest safe location for the traffic stop, as planned. An officer contacted Cruise’s staff and they were not forthcoming.” issued no citation.”
The company added that it works “closely with the SFPD on how to interface with our vehicles, including a dedicated phone number for them to call in situations like this.”
Cruise provides materials for first responders on how to interact with its self-driving fleet.
But since the industry is still in the early stages of deploying autonomous vehicles, there are no truly standardized procedures, specifically at the federal level, for how first responders should deal with autonomous vehicles.
“Now is probably the time we should be having this conversation,” said Sam Abuelsamid, a principal research analyst who runs Guidehouse Insights.
“And there should probably be a uniform approach. We should have the whole industry come to some agreement on how we’re going to deal with this, how the vehicles are going to respond if there’s a patrol or an emergency vehicle that’s trying to stop them.”
Cruise is aiming for a commercial rollout this year.
- This text was translated by Octavio López/TCA
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