In what have to be one of many weirder tales linked to the event of autonomous automobiles, a fleet of Cruise self-driving automobiles gathered collectively at an intersection in San Francisco earlier this week, parked up, and blocked site visitors for a number of hours. And to be clear: No, they weren’t supposed to do this.
Some observers could have thought they had been witnessing the beginning of the robotic rebellion, however the actual cause for the mishap was extra prosaic: A problem with the platform’s software program.
Personnel from Normal Motors-owned Cruise had been referred to as in to take management of among the errant automobiles, whereas others had been moved through distant intervention, in response to DailyTech.
A Reddit put up on the self-driving slip-up described “a bunch of Cruise automobiles caught” on Gough and Fulton Streets about two miles from Fisherman’s Wharf. Wanting intently on the accompanying photographs, it seems that at the least eight of Cruise’s autonomous automobiles had been parked throughout the road. A Twitter put up additionally captured the scene:
Some @Cruise robotaxis gave the impression to be caught in SF final night time on the nook of Gough St. and Fulton St.
Human ops apparently needed to rescue them. Nonetheless some kinks to iron out. pic.twitter.com/eXDocjVfHU
— Taylor Ogan (@TaylorOgan) June 30, 2022
The weird incident comes 4 months after Cruise started providing autonomous rides to people in San Francisco as a part of a trial robotaxi service, and simply days after it began charging passengers for the rides.
On the present time, Cruise’s self-driving automobiles have permission to function between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. when the roads are quieter. There’s no backup driver behind the wheel, so passengers are really alone within the car. It’s not clear if there have been any riders within the automobiles that bought caught.
Commenting on the incident, Cruise spokesperson Drew Pusateri instructed DailyTech: “We had a difficulty earlier this week that prompted a few of our automobiles to cluster collectively. Whereas it was resolved and no passengers had been impacted, we apologize to anybody who was inconvenienced.”
It’s not but clear if the authorities will punish Cruise for an obvious site visitors violation, or certainly if the town has any type of system in place for coping with autonomous automobiles which are discovered to have damaged the legislation.
One factor is evident — the town’s cops are nonetheless getting used to the concept of pulling over a car with nobody in it.
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