U.S. safety regulators are investigating reports that the autonomous robotaxis operated by General Motors’ Cruise may stop too quickly or stop moving unexpectedly, potentially stranding passengers.
In response to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, three rear-end collisions reportedly occurred after the Cruise autonomous vehicles braked hard, throwing the probe away. At the time, robotaxis was staffed by human safety drivers.
The agency also has multiple reports of Cruise robots failing to immobilize human safety drivers in San Francisco traffic, possibly stranding passengers and blocking lanes.
Reports of immobilized vehicles come from conversations with Cruise, media reports and native authorities, NHTSA said in an inquiry document published on Friday on its website.
In response to the NHTSA database, there have been two reports of hard braking injuries in March last 12 months, including a cyclist seriously injured.
NHTSA says it can determine how common the issues are and what security issues they might cause. The probe, which incorporates an estimated 242 Cruise autonomous vehicles, could bring a recall. “With this data, NHTSA can reply to security concerns about these technologies with further investigation and enforcement,” the agency said in a press release.
Cruise spokesman Drew Pusateri said the company was cooperating in the probe and that its vehicles had driven nearly 700,000 autonomous miles in the complex city with no life-threatening or fatal injuries.
“That is against the backdrop of greater than 40,000 deaths annually on American roads,” he wrote. “There’s all the time a balance between healthy regulatory control and the innovation we desperately need to avoid wasting lives.”
He said police didn’t issue fines in any of the accidents and that in each case the autonomous vehicle reacted to aggressive or erratic behavior by other road users. “AV worked to reduce collision severity and injury risk,” Pusateri wrote.
In clogged traffic incidents, Pusateri wrote that at any time when Cruise’s tech is not confident in getting around, it’s designed to be conservative, turning on hazard lights and stopping safely.
“Cruise personnel are physically dispatched as needed to get better the vehicle as soon as possible,” Pusateri wrote. Such outages are rare and haven’t resulted in any failures, he wrote.
NHTSA said Cruise reported three rear-end accidents as a part of a 2021 order that required automated vehicle firms notify the agency of failures.
Reports of the Cruise robot getting stuck in traffic got here from the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency and the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, the agency said.
Cruise vehicles can leave passengers in dangerous places, reminiscent of lanes or intersections, increasing the risk for disembarking passengers. They also can turn into an obstacle for other road users, forcing them to make dangerous maneuvers to avoid a collision. “Vehicles also can pose a secondary safety risk by blocking the path of emergency vehicles and thus delaying their response time,” NHTSA said in the document.
The town’s transportation agency, in comments to the NHTSA, said that starting in May, the city began noticing 911 calls from individuals who were disrupted by Cruise operations. Some city cops also saw disabled Cruise vehicles in the lanes. One incident in June involved 13 Cruise vehicles that stopped on a most important road. The agency said two other major lockdowns were reported in August.
The probe comes at a very important time for Cruise, which in June began charging passengers for self-driving rides without safety drivers in San Francisco. It is also a critical time for the self-driving vehicle industry as Google spin-off Waymo operates a robotaxi service in the Phoenix area with plans to expand into San Francisco. Other firms are also moving towards services without human security drivers.
San Francisco-based Cruise is planning extend service to Phoenix and Austin, Texas. The GM-owned startup has been testing self-driving Chevrolet Bolt electric cars for several years.