Autonomous General Motors Cruise taxis, under the microscope: the American government will investigate the accident of one of its cars
Published by The team in News the 09/07/2022 at 11:30
Cruise's debut in the commercialization of self-driving has not gone smoothly. If a few days ago we learned of the "spontaneous concentration" of several of their cars blocking a street in San Francisco, now an incident with one of these vehicles will be judged.
And it is that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) , the US government agency that regulates road safety, has opened an investigation to clarify a collision that took place in June between one of the autonomous vehicles of the company and another car.
A "misunderstanding" between the machine and the human
According to Reuters, the crash happened early last month when Cruise's self-driving car was making a left turn at a street intersection. Upon detecting the presence of another vehicle approaching from the opposite direction, the control system stopped the maneuver, leaving the autonomous stationary in the middle of the intersection.
While the other car (a Toyota Prius, according to Cruise's report filed with the California Highway Traffic Authority) entered the intersection without slowing down and slammed into the right rear of Cruise AV. After the crash, occupants of both vehicles reported minor injuries which were treated by health services.
Curiously, the left-turning maneuver that frames this accident is considered one of the most dangerous in city traffic (even for the most experienced human drivers), because it requires invading the opposite direction, showing those who approach us through it the weak right flank of our vehicle.
Thus, for safety but also for economy, distribution and logistics companies such as UPS have strictly prohibited their drivers from making these types of turns on their delivery routes.
At the time and date of the incident, the American company's autonomous vehicles were already crisscrossing the streets of San Francisco with users on board, after having received authorization from the Californian authorities to charge for their driverless transfer services.
Likewise, in this first month of operation, Cruise has already suffered the first massive failure of its driving software, which brought together up to 50 vehicles at the same point in the city, collapsing traffic in the surrounding streets.
With the case open, NHTSA is adding Cruise to its list of brands whose automated driving technology it is scrutinizing, seeking to understand the logic of how it works and why it went wrong.
Among these companies, Tesla occupies a prominent place. Not in vain, those of Fremont have already accumulated dozens of claims (some with injuries and deaths) caused by failures of their autopilot which, among other shortcomings, does not seem to adequately recognize the emergency vehicles around it.
