The Cruise company, a subsidiary of General Motors, has been offering self-driving taxis for limited rides on the streets of San Francisco† But at the beginning of April, one of these vehicles is said to have tried to flee for a police controlreports phonandroid†
A little chase
On patrol, the police had indeed decided to keep this vehicle under control. According to witnesses present at the scene, the car’s headlights were not on when it was already dark. An agent then approached the robot axi, without immediately understanding that it wasa vehicle without a driver†
Finally, when the officer had just driven away, the self-driving vehicle quickly restarted, as if trying to spiral out of control. So this Chevy Bolt rolled on for a few yards before stopping again and being overtaken by the police patrol. The scene of this car chase worthy of a science fiction movie was filmed and then widely circulated on social networks (to see here†
Expected behavior
When asked about the behavior of its self-driving car, the Cruise brand responded on Twitter. “Our self-driving vehicle gave way to the police vehicle and then stopped as scheduled to the nearest safe traffic stop location,” the company said. So this would be the normal operation of the vehicle.
“An officer contacted Cruise’s staff and no ticket was issued,” the brand said. Also in San Francisco, Waymo, Google self-driving cars present in the city since February 2021had meanwhile been mysteriously drawn to a dead endfor no apparent reason.
