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Kyle Vogt resignation —

After robotaxi dragged pedestrian 20 feet, cruise founder and ceo resigns, gm-owned cruise "failed to disclose" full video and key crash details, dmv said..

Jon Brodkin - Nov 20, 2023 6:07 pm UTC

The CEO of self-driving car firm Cruise resigned yesterday following an accident in which a Cruise robotaxi dragged a pedestrian 20 feet. California officials accused Cruise of withholding key information and video after the accident, and the company's self-driving operations are on hold while federal authorities investigate.

"Today I resigned from my position as CEO of Cruise," co-founder Kyle Vogt wrote in a post on twitter.com . "The startup I launched in my garage has given over 250,000 driverless rides across several cities, with each ride inspiring people with a small taste of the future," he also wrote.

Cruise is owned by General Motors, which bought the company in 2016. Vogt expressed optimism about Cruise's future without him, saying the team is "executing on a solid, multi-year roadmap and an exciting product vision."

"As for what's next for me, I plan to spend time with my family and explore some new ideas. Thanks for the great ride!" Vogt wrote.

On Saturday, one day before resigning, Vogt reportedly apologized to staff in an email. "As CEO, I take responsibility for the situation Cruise is in today. There are no excuses, and there is no sugar coating what has happened. We need to double down on safety, transparency, and community engagement," he wrote in the email quoted by Reuters .

Robotaxi kept moving after hitting woman

The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) last month suspended Cruise's permits for autonomous vehicle deployment and driverless testing. Cruise subsequently announced a "pause" of all of its driverless operations in the US, which includes San Francisco, Austin, Phoenix, Houston, Dallas, and Miami. Cruise said the pause affects about 70 vehicles.

The DMV action came three weeks after a Cruise vehicle hit and dragged a pedestrian in San Francisco. A woman entered a crosswalk at nighttime and was hit by two cars, the second of which was the Cruise vehicle. First, a Nissan Sentra "tragically struck and propelled the pedestrian into the path of the AV," Cruise said in a description of the incident .

The Cruise vehicle then moved "rightward before braking aggressively, but still made contact with the pedestrian," the company said. "The AV detected a collision, bringing the vehicle to a stop; then attempted to pull over to avoid causing further road safety issues, pulling the individual forward approximately 20 feet."

The accident happened at 9:29 pm on October 2. The Nissan driver fled the scene, and Cruise said it was sharing information with authorities to help them track down the hit-and-run driver. The woman suffered severe injuries and was reportedly still in "serious condition" at San Francisco General Hospital in late October.

In an order of suspension that was published by Vice , the California DMV said that in a meeting on October 3, "Cruise failed to disclose that the AV executed a pullover maneuver that increased the risk of, and may have caused, further injury to a pedestrian. Cruise's omission hinders the ability of the department to effectively and timely evaluate the safe operation of Cruise's vehicles and puts the safety of the public at risk."

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on October 16 opened an investigation into Cruise vehicles after receiving reports of two pedestrian injuries, including the October 2 incident. The Cruise cars "may not have exercised appropriate caution around pedestrians in the roadway," the agency said. Another Cruise robotaxi hit a fire truck in San Francisco in August.

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A Cruise car hit a pedestrian. The company’s response could set back California’s new robotaxi industry

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On Oct. 2, a Cruise driverless robotaxi hit a woman in downtown San Francisco and pinned her under the car, sending her to the hospital with serious injuries.

On Tuesday, state authorities suspended Cruise’s operating permit, banning it from deploying driverless cars on public roads until safety concerns are resolved. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating whether to take action too.

The turn of events marks a new chapter in the evolution of driverless cars and trucks. Not only is the underlying technology of autonomous vehicles under question; so too are the ethics of Cruise management, centering on founder and Chief Executive Kyle Vogt.

In pulling the permit, the California Department of Motor Vehicles cited safety concerns but also alleged that Cruise — owned by General Motors — misled the agency about basic facts.

What Cruise did not say, and what the DMV revealed Tuesday, is that after sitting still for an unspecified period of time, the robotaxi began moving forward at about 7 mph, dragging the woman with it for 20 feet.

The combination of safety and trust issues probably will deepen public skepticism about the technology and cause regulators to reevaluate their level of confidence in Cruise, if not the industry as a whole. That’s according to Bryant Walker Smith, an expert in automated vehicle law at the University of South Carolina. If Cruise can’t be trusted to be straightforward about the facts surrounding a serious injury case, “naturally the next question is how can we trust anything else you’ve told us.”

Here’s what happened: A car with a human behind the wheel hit a woman who was crossing the street against a red light at the intersection of 5 th and Market Streets. The pedestrian slid over the hood and into the path of a Cruise robotaxi, with no human driver. She was pinned under the car, and was taken to a hospital.

Those were the facts that were publicized immediately after the incident. Cruise called the crash tragic but said that the robotaxi stopped as it was supposed to and that a human driver couldn’t have reacted any faster.

Cruise had shown a video of the incident to reporters but barred them from posting it publicly. (Because of that restriction, The Times turned down Cruise’s offer.) The video shown to reporters ended with the robotaxi sitting motionless. The video was edited and did not show the car start up and drag the woman 20 more feet.

The DMV said Cruise showed it the same abbreviated video, and only later did the agency see the full version. The two sides are fighting about that version of events. Cruise said it showed the DMV the full video from the start.

In any case, Smith said, “If Cruise did not show [reporters] the whole video or acknowledge that something else happened, that is not the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

He found Cruise’s withholding of the full clip “baffling,” because, he said, “of course that’s going to come out.”

San Francisco’s fire chief is fed up with robotaxis that mess with her firetrucks. And L.A. is next

As robotaxi companies plan to provide service in Los Angeles, San Francisco officials battle with state regulators over robotaxi safety.

June 22, 2023

Asked why the company did not show the pedestrian-dragging part of the video to reporters, Cruise spokesperson Hannah Lindow emailed this response: “We moved quickly to get information out to necessary parties, with our top priority being to ensure that all officials had access to the information they needed immediately to apprehend the criminal in this situation — the hit and run driver. Initial media reports stated that the Cruise vehicle initially struck the pedestrian and did not mention the hit-and-run driver that caused the incident. Additionally, first responders did not initially mention the hit-and-run driver. It was important to correct the record to show that the incident was initiated by a human-driven vehicle that fled the scene.”

Cruise and its competitor Waymo have been under fire for months for the tendency of their robotaxis to interfere with firefighters, emergency medical workers and police, to the point where the chief of the San Francisco Fire Department deemed them “not ready for prime time.”

At the time, the companies sought permission for a major expansion of their robotaxi services in San Francisco from the California Public Utilities Commission. Opponents asked the commission for a pause, recommending the emergency responder issue be resolved first. In August, the commission voted 3 to 1 to greenlight the expansion. One of the yes votes came from Commissioner John Reynolds, Cruise’s former corporate counsel, appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

For Cruise, that plan for now has been dashed. After the vote, a Cruise vehicle crashed into a firetruck, and the company’s vehicles began to act in bizarre ways, clustering together to block pedestrian and vehicle traffic at busy intersections for no apparent reason. All that preceded the robot-drags-human incident and Cruise’s questionable response.

The repercussions could be huge, Smith said. “One possibility is that this feeds into the narrative of automated vehicles and the companies behind them are suffering and failing,” he said.

The other possibility is that “this becomes a moment of differentiation” separating the qualities of the various robotaxi companies in the eyes regulators and the general public.

Companies including Zoox, Motional and Waymo are taking a more deliberate and safety-conscious approach to their rollouts, he said. “Waymo, though not perfect, has been quite public and detailed about what safety means to them, in ways much better than Cruise.”

Editorial: The robotaxi revolution is here. L.A., other cities need to be able to regulate driverless cars

California should not blithely turn over public streets to Cruise, Waymo or other robotaxi companies to develop their autonomous vehicle businesses.

Aug. 20, 2023

Los Angeles is currently considering how to handle an expected influx of robotaxis in the near future. One issue: The state has given cities no authority to regulate the technology, a restriction that had been pushed by industry lobbyists, and backed by Newsom.

Vogt often talks about safety as Cruise’s top concern: “The culture of Cruise and the sincerity with which we treat our values and behaviors is much higher than I’ve ever had in my career,” he told an audience at the Disrupt conference in San Francisco in September.

But he also emphasized the need to move fast. “San Francisco is a billion-dollar ride hailing market,” he said. “The scale is going to be very rapid. We are going to build thousands or maybe even more [vehicles] next year…. The goal is to get to scale as quickly as we can in terms of the total number of AVs to make this business profitable and sustainable.”

For now, Cruise is not moving at all.

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How a robotaxi crash got Cruise’s self-driving cars pulled from Californian roads

The whiplash from approval to ban in just two months highlights the fragmented oversight governing the fledgling industry

SAN FRANCISCO — Two months before Cruise’s driverless cars were yanked off the streets here for rolling over a pedestrian and dragging her about 20 feet, California regulators said they were confident about self-driving technology and gave the company permission to operate its robotaxi service in the city.

That approval was a pivotal moment for the self-driving car industry, as it expanded one of the biggest test cases in the world for the technology. But now, after the Oct. 2 crash that critically injured a jaywalking pedestrian — and Cruise’s initial misrepresentation over what actually happened that night — officials here are rethinking whether self-driving cars are ready for the road, and experts are encouraging other states to do the same.

On Thursday, just two days after the California Department of Motor Vehicles suspended Cruise’s driverless permits, the company said it would suspend all driverless operations in the country to examine its process and earn back public trust.

“It was just a matter of time before an incident like this occurred,” San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu said of the Oct. 2 crash. “And it was incredibly unfortunate that it happened, but it is not a complete surprise.”

The final 11 seconds of a fatal Tesla Autopilot crash

Immediately after California’s Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) voted in August to allow General Motors’ Cruise and Google’s Waymo to charge for rides 24/7 around San Francisco, Chiu filed a motion to halt the commercial expansion, arguing the driverless cars had serious “public safety ramifications.”

Here in California, the whiplash from approval to ban in just two months highlights the fragmented oversight governing the self-driving car industry — a system that allowed Cruise to operate on San Francisco’s roads for more than three weeks following the October collision, despite dragging a human pinned underneath the vehicle.

California Assembly member Phil Ting (D), whose district includes San Francisco, said the DMV did “the right thing” by suspending the permits when it learned the full extent of the crash. While state legislators are grappling with how to control this rapidly developing industry, he said the DMV already has a rigorous permit approval process for autonomous vehicles. Cruise, for example, said it has received seven different permits over the past few years from the DMV to operate in California.

In California alone, more than 40 companies — ranging from young start-ups to tech giants — have permits to test their self-driving cars in San Francisco, according to the DMV. According to a Washington Post analysis of the data, the companies collectively report millions of miles on public roads every year, along with hundreds of mostly minor accidents.

“It’s hard being first, that’s the problem,” Ting said. “We are doing the best we can with what we know, while knowing that [autonomous vehicles] are part of our future. But how do we regulate it, not squash it?”

A skewed version of events

Just as the light turned green at a chaotic intersection in downtown San Francisco that October night, a pedestrian stepped into the road. A human-driven car rammed into the woman, causing her to roll onto the windshield for a few moments before she was flung into the path of the Cruise driverless car.

The human-driven car fled the scene, while the Cruise remained until officials arrived.

The morning after the collision, Cruise showed The Post and other media outlets footage captured by the driverless vehicle. In the video shared via Zoom, the driverless vehicle appeared to brake as soon as it made impact with the woman. Then the video ended.

When asked by The Post what happened next, Cruise spokeswoman Hannah Lindow said the company had no additional footage to share and that the autonomous vehicle “braked aggressively to minimize the impact.” According to the DMV, representatives from the department were initially shown a similar video.

But that original video captured only part of the story.

Aaron Peskin, president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, said that first responders who tended to the crash noted a trail of blood from the point of impact with the woman to where the vehicle ultimately stopped about 20 feet away.

The DMV said it met with Cruise the day after the crash but received additional footage 10 days later after “another government agency” told the DMV it existed. While the Cruise vehicle did initially brake as the company reported, the longer video showed the car began moving again toward the side of the road.

According to the DMV, the Cruise vehicle dragged the woman pinned underneath for about 20 feet, a move that may have worsened her injuries.

Cruise rebuts the DMV’s account, saying “shortly after the incident, our team proactively shared information” with state and federal investigators.

“We have stayed in close contact with regulators to answer their questions and assisted the police with identifying the vehicle of the hit and run driver,” Lindow said in a statement. “Our teams are currently doing an analysis to identify potential enhancements to the [autonomous vehicle’s] response to this kind of extremely rare event.”

In its decision to revoke Cruise’s driverless permits Tuesday, the DMV said that Cruise vehicles are “not safe for the public’s operation” and determined the company misrepresented “information related to safety of the autonomous technology.”

Meanwhile, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also opened an investigation into Cruise this month over reports that its vehicles “may not have exercised appropriate caution around pedestrians in the roadway.”

Ed Walters, who teaches autonomous vehicle law at Georgetown University, said that driverless technology is critical for a future with fewer road fatalities because robots don’t drive drunk or get distracted. But, he said, this accident shows that Cruise was not “quite ready for testing” in such a dense urban area.

“In hindsight you would have to say it was too early to roll these cars out in that environment,” he said. “This is a cautionary tale that we should be incremental. That we should do this step by step and do as much testing as we can with people in the cars to see when they are safe and whether they are safe.”

Incomplete data

Under the DMV’s autonomous vehicle program, companies are asked to publicly report collisions involving driverless cars only when they are in test mode . That means if an incident like the Oct. 2 crash occurs while the company is technically operating as a commercial service, the company does not have to publicly report it as an “Autonomous Vehicle Collision Report.”

As of mid-October, the DMV said it received 666 such reports. The Oct. 2 crash is not one of them.

“In commercial deployment, filing crash reports with the state is essentially voluntary,” Julia Friedlander, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s senior manager of automated driving policy, told city officials during a recent meeting. “It’s possible that some companies are making the decision to file reports sometimes and not necessarily file reports at other times.”

Cruise said it complies “with all required reporting from our regulators” and the company has “conversations with regulators about a number of reportable and non-reportable incidents on a regular basis.” Lindow, the spokeswoman, said the company reported the Oct. 2 crash to the DMV under reporting requirements that are not publicly available.

This is just one example of how difficult it is to get an accurate picture of the performance of driverless cars.

There are few clear federal regulations that set rules for how autonomous vehicles must function , and what standards they must meet before they are tested on public roads. At the federal level, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration gathers mostly self-reported crash data from companies. In California, the DMV issues permits for testing and deployment, and the CPUC regulates commercial passenger service programs.

In San Francisco, city officials have no say over whether — or how — the cars are deployed on their streets.

That lack of control has unnerved city officials, especially as driverless cars created by Cruise and Waymo have become ubiquitous in San Francisco. The cars have caused major headaches in the city, as they have disrupted first responders on numerous occasions, from rolling into scenes cordoned off by caution tape to once colliding with a firetruck on its way to an emergency scene. City leaders attempted to halt the expansion by highlighting these incidents, but were ultimately unsuccessful.

In an interview with The Post last month, Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt said the criticism of driverless cars and the incidents involving his company were overblown.

“Anything that we do differently than humans is being sensationalized,” he said at the time.

Who’s responsible when there’s no driver?

While it was a human that hit the pedestrian and a Cruise vehicle that dragged her for 20 feet, Peskin, the Board of Supervisors president, said those on the CPUC who granted the company expanded permits — despite a flurry of issues reported with the technology — also bear some responsibility for the crash.

“Yes I blame Cruise,” he said. “But there was supposed to be a check and balance — and that check and balance completely failed, and it failed in a spectacular way.”

Terrie Prosper, a spokesperson for the CPUC, declined to make any of the commissioners available for an interview about this issue, saying “this matter is under deliberation.”

Moving forward, Chiu, the San Francisco city attorney, said officials are still working on their request to appeal Waymo’s permits to operate their robotaxi service in the city.

While the company has not caused as many high-profile incidents as Cruise lately, he said it is important for the state to “go back to the drawing board” until regulators can figure out clearer standards for the technology.

“The fact that we have multiple state agencies that appear to be working in different directions is challenging,” he said. “Who is ultimately responsible for ensuring safety on our streets?”

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Cruise says a hit-and-run ‘launched’ pedestrian in front of one of its robotaxis

The incident is the latest to involve a driverless vehicle in san francisco, where hundreds of robotaxis are operating commercially 24/7..

By Andrew J. Hawkins , transportation editor with 10+ years of experience who covers EVs, public transportation, and aviation. His work has appeared in The New York Daily News and City & State.

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A hit-and-run in San Francisco last night ended with a pedestrian “stuck” under a Cruise autonomous vehicle. Police are investigating whether a human-driven vehicle may have been involved in the crash.

The driver struck a female pedestrian, throwing her in the path of a Cruise robotaxi that was operating autonomously. The Cruise vehicle then braked, with its rear tire still on top of the woman’s leg, fire officials told NBC . After Cruise disabled the vehicle, rescuers were able to get the vehicle off the woman’s leg using the jaws of life, NBC reports.

While the investigation is ongoing, Cruise put out a series of statements on X (formerly Twitter) to explain its role in the crash. The pedestrian was “launched” in front of a Cruise robotaxi after being struck by a vehicle that was traveling in the lane to the left, the company said. The robotaxi “braked aggressively to minimize impact,” while the driver of the other vehicle fled the scene. The condition of the struck pedestrian is unknown at this time, police said.

The crash was the latest in San Francisco to involve a driverless vehicle, as hundreds more have hit the road recently for 24/7 commercial service . With more robotaxis have also come a number of crashes, most of which have been minor, though a handful have involved injuries.

The crash was the latest in San Francisco to involve a driverless vehicle

A spokesperson with the San Francisco Police Department sent this statement:

On 10/02/23 at approximately 9:31 pm officers responded to 5th and Market Streets regarding a vehicle collision involving a pedestrian. Officers arrived on scene and discovered an autonomous vehicle struck an adult pedestrian. Officers rendered aid and summoned medics to the scene and transported the pedestrian to the hospital. The medical condition of the pedestrian is unknown at this time. The autonomous vehicle remained on scene and did not have an occupant at the time of the collision. The operator of the autonomous vehicle is cooperating with the investigation. We believe that another vehicle that was not an autonomous vehicle may have been initially involved in the collision, but the vehicle or driver were not present at the scene during our investigation. The SFPD Traffic Collision Investigations Unit is leading the investigation and is looking into the factors that lead to this collision. Anyone with information is asked to contact SFPD at 415-575-4444 or text a tip to TIP411 and begin the message with SFPD. At the scene of any vehicle collision, we document what occurred by gathering evidence. This evidence includes the location of the vehicle and/or vehicles before, during and after the collision, which is why the vehicle was kept in its stationary position.

According to Cruise, “a human-driven vehicle struck a pedestrian while traveling in the lane immediately to the left of a Cruise AV. The initial impact was severe and launched the pedestrian directly in front of the AV.”

“The AV then braked aggressively to minimize the impact,” the company continued. “The driver of the other vehicle fled the scene, and at the request of the police the AV was kept in place.”

Cruise says it is “actively working with police to help identify the responsible driver,” including sharing video footage from its vehicle’s cameras with police, spokesperson Aaron Mclear said in an email. A spokesperson from the San Francisco Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The crash incident has yet to be filed with the Department of Motor Vehicles, which requires all AV companies to report collisions .

• Robotaxis are driving on thin ice

In August, a Cruise robotaxi collided with a fire truck , injuring one passenger. In response, the company reduced the number of vehicles it had deployed by half while the city investigated the incident.

City officials, including transit, police, and fire departments, have expressed serious concerns about driverless vehicles intruding on emergency scenes, blocking intersections, and obstructing emergency vehicles. They have also been involved in a number of minor fender benders and rear-end collisions that have some residents worried about escalation as more are deployed.

Update October 3rd 9:23AM ET: Updated to include details from local news reports.

Update October 3rd 12:22PM ET: Updated to include a statement from SFPD.

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Cruise robotaxi service hid severity of accident, California officials claim

General Motors service faces $1.5m penalty over allegations it misled regulators after a driverless car ran into a pedestrian

California regulators are alleging a San Francisco robotaxi service owned by General Motors covered up the severity of an accident involving one of its driverless cars, raising the specter they may add a fine to the recent suspension of its California license.

The potential penalty facing GM’s Cruise service could be around $1.5m, based on documents filed late last week by the California public utilities commission.

The notice orders Cruise to appear at a 6 February evidentiary hearing to determine whether the robotaxi service misled regulators about what happened after one of its driverless cars ran into a pedestrian who had already been struck by another vehicle driven by a human on the evening of 2 October in San Francisco.

The February hearing comes just six months after the commission authorized Cruise’s robotaxi service to begin charging passengers for around-the-clock rides throughout San Francisco, despite strident objections from city officials who warned the driverless cars malfunctioned.

Three weeks after Cruise’s 2 October accident, the California department of motor vehicles effectively shut down the robotaxi service by suspending its license to operate in the state.

The suspension was a major blow for Cruise and its corporate parent, GM, which absorbed huge losses during the development of the driverless service that was supposed to generate $1bn in revenue by 2025 as it expanded beyond San Francisco.

After losing nearly $6bn since the end of 2019, Cruise has shifted into reverse as it scrambles to control the fallout from the 2 October accident, which critically injured the pedestrian and led to the recent resignation of Kyle Vogt, the company’s CEO and co-founder.

Without directly addressing the potential fine, Mary Barra, CEO for GM, said on Monday that the October crash had helped the automaker learn more about the need for transparency and a better relationship with regulators.

“We’re very focused on righting the ship here because this is technology that can make the way we move from point A to point B safer,” Barra said.

Barra also pointed to the overhaul of Cruise’s management that included a reorganization of its government-relations and legal teams as signs of progress. “We think we can do things more effectively,” she said.

Cruise issued its own statement pledging to respond “in a timely manner” to the public utility commission’s concerns. The company has already hired an outside law firm to scrutinize its response to the 2 October accident.

The most serious questions about the incident concern Cruise’s handling of a video showing a robotaxi named “Panini” dragging the pedestrian 20ft (6 meters) at a speed of 7mph before coming to the stop.

In a 1 December filing recounting how Cruise handled disclosures about the accident, the commission asserted the company tried to conceal how its robotaxi reacted to the accident for more than two weeks.

The documents allege Cruise’s concealment started with a 3 October phone call to a regulatory analyst who was told the robotaxi had come to an immediate stop upon impact with the pedestrian without mentioning the vehicle actually drove another 20ft with the injured person still pinned down.

Cruise did not provide the video footage until 19 October, according to the regulatory filing. The cover-up spanned 15 days, according to the commission, exposing Cruise and GM to potential fines of $100,000 per day, or $1.5m.

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California orders Cruise driverless cars off the roads because of safety concerns

A Cruise technician comes to restart a driverless car in San Francisco. Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

A Cruise technician comes to restart a driverless car in San Francisco.

California has ordered the company Cruise to immediately stop operations of its driverless cars in the state. The Department of Motor Vehicles said on Tuesday that it was issuing the indefinite suspension because of safety issues with the vehicles.

"When there is an unreasonable risk to public safety, the DMV can immediately suspend or revoke permits," the DMV wrote in a statement. "There is no set time for a suspension."

The move comes after one of Cruise's driverless cars struck a pedestrian in downtown San Francisco earlier this month. The incident involved a woman who was first hit by a human driver and then thrown onto the road in front of a Cruise vehicle. The Cruise vehicle braked but then continued to roll over the pedestrian, pulling her forward, then coming to a final stop on top of her.

Rescuers used the jaws of life to remove the vehicle and free the woman. The pedestrian survived but sustained life-threatening injuries.

"Our teams are currently doing an analysis to identify potential enhancements to the AV's response to this kind of extremely rare event," said Navideh Forghani, a Cruise spokesperson.

Forghani said Cruise provided regulators a video of the incident and is complying with the DMV's order and "pausing operations." Those cars that have a human safety driver will be allowed to continue operating in the state.

The DMV originally gave Cruise a permit for 300 driverless vehicles in San Francisco, but it cut that number in half after one of its cars collided with a firetruck in August.

Driverless cars run by Cruise, which is owned by GM, and Waymo, which is owned by Alphabet, have been involved in numerous mishaps in the city over the past several months. They've run red lights , rear-ended a bus and blocked crosswalks and bike paths.

San Francisco's police and fire departments have also said the cars aren't yet ready for public roads . They've tallied more than 55 incidents where self-driving cars have gotten in the way of rescue operations . Those incidents include driving through yellow emergency tape, blocking firehouse driveways, running over fire hoses and refusing to move for first responders.

Despite those incidents, state regulators voted in August to allow self-driving car companies to expand their operations in San Francisco and other California cities. That prompted the city of San Francisco to file motions with the state demanding a halt to that expansion.

"We need actual people behind the wheel with a pulse and a brain that know how to maneuver in sticky situations," San Francisco Supervisor Shamann Walton said at Tuesday rally protesting the driverless cars. "These Cruise vehicles are dangerous on our streets. When they see tragedy or see danger or there's an obstacle in their way, all they know how to do is freeze."

Federal regulators are also looking at the safety of driverless cars. Last week, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation into Cruise citing pedestrian safety concerns.

The crackdown on Cruise comes as GM announced during its earnings call this week that it is intent on expanding its driverless car program in the U.S.

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In latest Cruise incident, video shows pedestrian struck by human-driven car, then run over by robotaxi

The San Francisco Police Department is investigating an October 2 incident that left a woman stuck underneath a Cruise robotaxi after being hit by a human-driven vehicle.

Video captured by Cruise and viewed by TechCrunch shows a robotaxi braking and then running over a pedestrian who is laying in the street after being struck by a human-driven car and launched in front of the autonomous vehicle. Cruise said t he driver of the vehicle who initially hit the pedestrian fled the scene. 

Cruise said in its account of the events that the robotaxi “braked aggressively” to minimize impact. Still, the pedestrian was run over and then stuck under the vehicle, according to police as well as video from local bystanders that show the person under the robotaxi.

TechCrunch viewed the video, which shows a Cruise vehicle stopped at a traffic light and then proceeding once it turned green. The cameras, which include a forward-facing, rear-facing and side-facing cameras, captures a human-driven vehicle in the left lane accelerating through the intersection. Moments later, the video shows a person, who has entered the street on the far left side, being hit by the human-driven car, then flying over the front hood, up onto the roof of the vehicle and down the right side before falling into the street. The pedestrian landed in the lane to the right of the human-driven vehicle, which is where the Cruise robotaxi was.

Police are still investigating the matter. A San Francisco Police Department spokesperson released a statement:

On 10/02/23 at approximately 9:31 pm officers responded to 5th and Market Streets regarding a vehicle collision involving a pedestrian. Officers arrived on scene and discovered an autonomous vehicle struck an adult pedestrian. Officers rendered aid and summoned medics to the scene and transported the pedestrian to the hospital. The medical condition of the pedestrian is unknown at this time. The autonomous vehicle remained on scene and did not have an occupant at the time of the collision. The operator of the autonomous vehicle is cooperating with the investigation. We believe that another vehicle that was not an autonomous vehicle may have been initially involved in the collision, but the vehicle or driver were not present at the scene during our investigation. The SFPD Traffic Collision Investigations Unit is leading the investigation and is looking into the factors that lead to this collision. Anyone with information is asked to contact SFPD at 415-575-4444 or text a tip to TIP411 and begin the message with SFPD.

Cruise was quick to weigh in on the incident, taking to social media site X to give its account.

“At approximately 9:30 pm on October 2, a human-driven vehicle struck a pedestrian while traveling in the lane immediately to the left of a Cruise AV,” the post said. “The initial impact was severe and launched the pedestrian directly in front of the AV. The AV then braked aggressively to minimize the impact. The driver of the other vehicle fled the scene, and at the request of the police the AV was kept in place. Our heartfelt concern and focus is the wellbeing of the person who was injured and we are actively working with police to help identify the responsible driver.”

The event is the latest in a string of crashes and other incidents such as blocking traffic and driving into wet cement that has plagued Cruise operations in San Francisco. Based on Cruise’s account it appears the company wasn’t at fault in the initial impact of the pedestrian. An investigation should help determine if the AV could have avoided the pedestrian at all.

But in a city already divided on robotaxis, whether Cruise is to blame might not matter. The incident comes at a critical time for Cruise, a company trying to scale robotaxi operations in San Francisco and begin testing and eventually charge for rides in more than a dozen U.S. cities .

Cruise and Waymo won approval in August from the California Public Utilities Commission to expand commercial operations in San Francisco. The CPUC, the agency that regulates ride-hailing operations including those involving robotaxis, approved Cruise and Waymo on August 10 for final permits that allow the companies to operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, expand their fleets and charge for rides throughout the city.

Just days later, Cruise was involved in a crash with an emergency response vehicle, prompting the California Department of Motor Vehicles, which also regulates autonomous vehicles, to request Cruise reduce its fleet by 50% until it could complete an investigation.

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Driverless Taxis Blocked Ambulance in Fatal Accident, San Francisco Fire Dept. Says

Two Cruise taxis delayed an ambulance carrying a car accident victim to a hospital, a department report said. The company said it was not at fault.

By Yiwen Lu

Two Cruise driverless taxis blocked an ambulance carrying a critically injured patient who later died at a hospital, a San Francisco Fire Department report said, in another incident involving self-driving cars in the city.

On Aug. 14, two Cruise autonomous vehicles were stopped in the right two lanes of a four-lane, one-way street in the SoMa neighborhood, where the victim was found, according to the department report. It said that a police vehicle in another lane had to be moved in order for the ambulance to leave.

The driverless vehicles delayed transport and medical care, the report said. The patient, who had been struck by a car, was pronounced dead about 20 to 30 minutes after arriving at the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, about 2.4 miles away from the accident.

Cruise, an autonomous vehicle subsidiary of General Motors, said that it was not at fault. The footage Cruise shared with The New York Times appeared to show that one of its vehicles had moved from the scene before the victim was loaded to the ambulance, while the other stopped in the right lane until after the ambulance left. The footage also showed that other vehicles, including another ambulance, passed by the right side of the Cruise taxi.

“As soon as the victim was loaded into the ambulance, the ambulance left the scene immediately and was never impeded” by the Cruise vehicle, the company said in a statement. The ambulance passed the stopped Cruise vehicle approximately 90 seconds after loading the victim, according to the footage.

Cruise said that a police officer spoke to one of its employees through remote assistance in the vehicle, and that the company was able to navigate it away from the scene after the ambulance left.

The Fire Department confirmed the report , which was first obtained by Forbes. Jeanine Nicholson, chief of the Fire Department, said that “seconds matter” in such incidents and the problem was that responders were not able to access to the patient.

“I have yet to see Cruise taking responsibility for anything,” Ms. Nicholson said, adding that more conversations need to happen.

Aaron Peskin, the president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, said that regardless of what led to the victim’s death, the “accumulative total” of incidents involving driverless cars was more alarming. “All of them have a common theme, which is autonomous vehicles are not ready for prime time,” Mr. Peskin said.

Cruise and Waymo, which is backed by Alphabet, Google’s parent company, began to offer driverless taxi services in San Francisco last year. The accident occurred four days after both companies obtained a permit from California state regulators to expand their services to charge for rides at all hours in San Francisco.

The Fire Department said the case was one of more than 70 of autonomous vehicles interfering with emergency responders. San Francisco officials have protested the expansion of driverless taxi services since January, pointing to cases where driverless cars blocked emergency vehicles and interfered during active firefighting and crime scenes.

Some city officials have said that these incidents are a small fraction of all cases involving driverless cars. The companies were required to report only collisions to regulators, not other incidents.

Since the expansion of driverless taxi services began, Cruise vehicles were reported to have blocked traffic and to have been stuck in wet cement. On Aug. 17, a Cruise vehicle collided with a fire truck. The next day, the California Department of Motor Vehicles, which oversees the safety of autonomous vehicles, asked Cruise to halve the number of vehicles it was operating in the city as it investigated the incidents.

City officials plan to file a motion for a new hearing on the service expansion, Mr. Peskin said. David Chiu, the city attorney, previously asked the California Public Utilities Commission, the agency that approved the expansion, to halt the plan.

Yiwen Lu is a technology reporting fellow based in San Francisco. More about Yiwen Lu

Driverless Cars and the Future of Transportation

Autonomous taxis have arrived in car-obsessed Los Angeles, the nation’s second most populous city. But some Angelenos aren’t ready to go driverless .

Cruise, the embattled self-driving car subsidiary of General Motors,  said that it would eliminate roughly a quarter of its work force , as the company looked to rein in costs after an incident led California regulators to shut down its robot taxi operations.

Tesla, the world’s dominant maker of electric vehicles, recalled more than two million vehicles  to address concerns from U.S. officials about Autopilot , the company’s self-driving software.

An Appetite for Destruction: A wave of lawsuits argue that Tesla’s Autopilot software is dangerously overhyped. What can its blind spots teach us about Elon Musk, the company’s erratic chief executive ?

Along for the Ride: Here’s what New York Times reporters experienced during test rides in driverless cars operated by Tesla , Waymo  and Cruise .

The Future of Transportation?: Driverless cars, once a Silicon Valley fantasy, have become a 24-hour-a-day reality in San Francisco . “The Daily” looked at the unique challenges of coexisting with cars that drive themselves .

Stressing Cities: In San Francisco and Austin, Texas, where passengers can hail autonomous taxis, the vehicles are starting to take a toll on city services , even slowing down emergency response times.

A Fast Rise and Fall: Cruise, a subsidiary of General Motors, wanted to grow fast. Now, the company faces safety concerns  as it contends with angry regulators, anxious employees and skepticism about the viability of the business .

Waymo vs. Cruise: Which robotaxis crashed more in San Francisco?

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Waymo robotaxis reported 35 more crashes in San Francisco than Cruise since the beginning of 2022, according to publicly available reports from the California Department of Motor Vehicles. But Cruise had far more incidents involving injuries.

Waymo and Cruise reported 103 and 68 collisions in San Francisco since Jan. 1, 2022, according to the latest records available from the DMV. The firms must report all collision incidents to the DMV, the California Public Utilities Commission and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration as part of regulatory requirements.

In 2022, both companies began offering driverless taxi services to the public through a limited-access program that required users to have an invite-only access code.

Although Waymo recorded more crashes, Cruise had a worse record in terms of injuries. Of Cruise's 68 collision reports, 14 involved injuries, meaning that around 20% of the company’s crash incidents since 2022 involved injuries. Of those collisions, five required emergency medics to be called to the scene, with the most serious being an incident in which a cyclist crashed into the rear window of the robotaxi as the Cruise braked going downhill. The cyclist was taken away from the scene by medics.

The vast majority of crash incidents Cruise reported to regulators involved a situation in which the Cruise car was not at fault because it was legally stopped, rear-ended or had the right of way, according to a company spokesperson.

Waymo recorded just two incidents in which injuries were reported in the same period. 

READ MORE: San Francisco Robotaxis: Amazon-Owned Company’s Cars Crashed 39 Times

In many cases, it is the passengers or test drivers riding in the driverless vehicles who sustain injuries. Waymo studies say 55% of crashes are due to human drivers hitting their stationary vehicles.

The crashes include any incident in which an autonomous vehicle comes into contact with an object or a person, be it another vehicle, a biker, scooter, pedestrian, road barriers or debris. The collisions may have occurred when the vehicle was either in autonomous (driverless) or manual mode (meaning there was a human operator behind the wheel).

Companies must report everything from a minor fender bender—such as one that causes no damage to either car and normally would not be reported to the police—to incidents like deflating a tire in a pothole.

Waymo’s higher crash numbers may also be because its vehicles drive more miles than those of other robotaxi companies, a Waymo spokesperson said.

Both Cruise and Waymo cleared the last regulatory hurdle toward full driverless deployment at a California Public Utilities Commission hearing in August that allowed both companies to charge for 24/7 driverless rides throughout the city, despite heavy protest from activists and taxi drivers . The state told Cruise to cut its fleet in half after a crash with a fire truck injured a passenger .

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San Francisco firefighters battle flames at 3-story building in Nob Hill neighborhood

San francisco nob hill fire.

Firefighters battled flames that broke out at a three-story building on Jackson Street on Thursday morning. Muni cable cars were being redirected due to the fire.

SAN FRANCISCO - Firefighters in San Francisco battled a two-alarm fire in the city’s Nob Hill neighborhood on Thursday.

The fire broke out in a three-story building at 1275 Jackson Street near Leavenworth Street.

SEE ALSO : Planned Concord apartment building goes up in flames

The fire department alerted the public about the incident on social media shortly after 8:30 a.m. and asked people to avoid the area.

A search of the address where the fire broke out showed a dog walking business occupied part of the building.

San Francisco firefighters said have flames and smoke were on all levels of the three-story building at 1275 Jackson, where crews battled a 2-alarm fire on Thursday, May 2, 2024.

Fire officials said that no injuries were reported but that flames and smoke were found on every level of the building.

Muni cable cars were being redirected in both directions, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency said .

Watch CBS News

Vehicle fire on westbound Bay Bridge shuts down lanes heading into San Francisco

By Dave Pehling

Updated on: April 30, 2024 / 2:59 PM PDT / CBS San Francisco

A car fire on the westbound Bay Bridge shut down lanes of I-80 heading into San Francisco for about an hour late Tuesday morning, according to CHP.

The car fire happened on westbound I-80 west of Treasure Island shortly before 11 a.m., according to authorities. The fully engulfed vehicle appeared to be a truck in the photo that the San Francisco CHP office posted on social media. 

***TRAFFIC ADVISORY*** A fully engulfed vehicle fire on I-80 w/b (SFOBB) west of Treasure Island is currently blocking the #1, 2, and 3 w/b lanes. Fire and tow services en route to extinguish & remove the vehicle. Expect delays into San Francisco. pic.twitter.com/XR2Kggn59b — CHP San Francisco (@CHPSanFrancisco) April 30, 2024

The fire is currently blocking the #1, 2, and #3 westbound lanes on the bridge. A sig alert was issued due to the traffic impact on the bridge. So far there has been no report of injuries in the fire or what caused it.

Black smoke from the fire was visible on both sides of the bay, leading to a number of social media posts inquiring about the cause.

Crash on bay bridge captured on @clickyourtruth https://t.co/NnAC4LZsBB — Garrett Kinsman (@GeKinsman) April 30, 2024

Fire and tow services responded to the incident to extinguish the car fire and remove the vehicle from the span, CHP said. Video of the incident appeared to show the fire being put out at around 11:10 a.m. 

As of 11:40 AM, CHP reported the right and center lanes had reopened while the left lanes remain blocked. Shortly before 12 p.m., CHP said all westbound lanes of the bridge had reopened. The Oakland Fire Department later confirmed in a tweet that the driver was able to escape safely from the truck and no other injuries were reported.

The vehicle fire was the second major incident to impact traffic in the area Tuesday morning. Earlier, a fatal crash involving a motorcycle on eastbound Interstate Highway 80 in Oakland closed the transition ramp to southbound Interstate Highway 880 in the MacArthur Maze, according to the California Highway Patrol. 

The connector ramp remained blocked as of an hour after the crash, CHP officials said.

Drivers should expect residual delays traveling into San Francisco.  

• San Francisco

Dave Pehling started his journalism career doing freelance writing about music in the late 1990s, eventually working as a web writer, editor and producer for KTVU.com in 2003. He moved to CBS to work as the station website's managing editor in 2015.

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Crashes and Disasters | One dead, one injured in two-vehicle crash on…

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Crime and Public Safety

Crashes and disasters, crashes and disasters | one dead, one injured in two-vehicle crash on highway 25, the fatal collision happened monday afternoon at bloomfield avenue, the chp said.

The crash happened around 12:40 p.m. at Bloomfield Avenue, said California Highway Patrol Officer Alfredo Uribe.

A 2016 Freightliner tractor-trailer combination was traveling northbound on State Route 25 at 40 mph when a Hyundai Elantra made a left turn onto the highway from westbound Bloomfield Avenue, Uribe said. The big rig then collided with the car.

The driver of the Hyundai suffered fatal injuries in the crash, Uribe said. The Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-Coroner’s Office will release her identity once it is confirmed and her next of kin is identified.

Uribe said the collision left the driver of the big rig with minor injuries to his left hand.

Neither drugs nor alcohol appeared to play a role in the crash, Uribe said.

Anyone with information related to the case can contact the CHP Hollister-Gilroy area office at 408-427-0700.

Check back for updates.

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