A man died in a car accident in San Francisco. The ambulance was blocked by a Cruise robotic taxi.
The accident happened in mid-August. On the night of that day, a pedestrian was struck by a human-driven vehicle san francisco approached. Authorities blamed self-driving vehicles in part for the pedestrian’s death.
After the pedestrian was picked up, two autonomous cruise vehicles blocked emergency services, preventing him from reaching the hospital, according to the San Francisco Fire Department. The Cruise vehicles, the statement said, occupied the open lanes and did not move. Therefore, the emergency vehicle could not leave the scene of the accident and could not carry away the seriously injured man. It took a while for this to happen. That’s why the emergency services see Cruise as partly to blame.
Cruise contradicted the claims of the emergency services in a statement. The company says the ambulance had a clear path behind the car to pull past while other vehicles, including another ambulance, drove on. Two robot taxis would have been present. One would have cleared the scene of the accident as soon as the traffic light turned green. The other vehicle is said to have responded to the instructions. It was important for Cruise to emphasize that traffic could flow. There was no disability.
The claims by the San Francisco Fire Department are irresponsible, Cruise said. One is considering showing the recordings in order to free oneself from the allegations.
But there have already been such incidents in which cruise cars blocked the fire brigade. Also Waymo already had such an incident. Cruise countered with the number of 168,000 as it went smoothly.