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
I remember someone here chiding others for critizing Cruise. They were talking up the “fact” that the car stopped and let emergency services dictate what to do instead of risk harming her further. It was GOOD that the car stopped on her.
No matter what happens, anything or anywhere. There will always be people defending it. I wonder if that person is glad to hear the car heroically dragged her out of traffic?
On the other hand, there’s people who will condemn the very concept of self-driving cars because of the kind of event that happens every day with regular ol’ human-piloted cars.
This is a serious incident, it should be thoroughly investigated, regulations on safety and reporting should be seriously considered. But don’t strangle the baby in the crib: self-driving cars have the potential to be much safer than human-driven cars (arguably, they already are). When there’s stories about Cruise taxis stopping in an intersection and the response is an overwhelming flood of “ban all self-driving cars!”, it causes proponents to get overly defensive.
But the problem is those events are happening. People are wanting to strangle that baby because the kid is causing harm in the real world. The cars DO need to be taken off the streets, but that doesn’t mean they should be outlawed. However, they absolutely are not fit for public service. As someone who has “driven” a Tesla while it was “Full Self Driving”, and I gotta tell ya that it just can’t handle the rules of the road. It’s not better than a human. We can adapt to new situations on the fly, but a self driving car can only operate in certain parameters.
While I sympathize that there is nothing you can do about this, the real fault lies with the companies putting vehicles on the road before they are ready. Without a doubt, someday they will be. But as corporations push this out the door in the rush to be the first and the new name brand, they do so at the public expense. It’s the root problem for the cycle of backlash, resentment and defensiveness.
And if car makers have extensively proven that this is, in fact, the case, they might be allowed on the streets.
Narrator: they weren’t.
“Tesla is having more severe — and fatal — crashes than people in a normal data set,”
And I guess this normal data set is including US drivers only, who arguably are … not that good.
Uh, no. Getting “overly defensive” is your choice, and yours alone. “Look what you made me do” is really a terrible excuse for anything.
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