The company left out some key details regarding the incident involving one of its robotaxis and a pedestrian.
On October 2, 2023, a woman was run over and pinned to the ground by a Cruise robotaxi. Given the recent string of very public malfunctions the robotaxis have been experiencing in San Francisco, it was only a matter of time until a pedestrian was hurt by the self-driving cars. New reports, though, suggest that Cruise held back one of the most horrifying pieces of information: that the woman was dragged 20 feet by the robotaxi after being pushed into its path.
The LA Times reports:
A car with a human behind the wheel hit a woman who was crossing the street against a red light at the intersection of 5th 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.
But this is what Cruise left out:
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.
read more: https://jalopnik.com/woman-hit-by-cruise-robotaxi-was-dragged-20-feet-1850963884
archive link: https://archive.ph/8ENHu
My vision of self driving cars was of an integrated system where all the parts weave together to create a safer and faster environment. But self driving cars are just not able to deal with the edge cases that will pop up. Even that would be okay, but GM tried to cover up this horrific accident. That inspires the opposite of trust. I gotta wonder how many other incidents have been covered up. GM is a company with limited resources. Alphabet, the parent company of Waymo, has a virtually infinite budget. How many incidents have they hidden from the public eye?
Anyone with even a hobby level of coding knowledge knows it’s solving the edge cases that’s the real issue with resolving software problems. In this case I wouldn’t be surprised if automation reaches similar or lesser levels of traffic incidents, but the real shitty part is gonna be how much harder it is to get justice from a large corporate entity owning these robotaxi fleets versus nailing the little guy driving his Uber/taxi.