“In downtown San Francisco two vehicles were stopped at a red light on Monday night, reports the Washington Post — a regular car and a Cruise robotaxi.”
okay so far so good, keep reading though.
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how long do we need to keep hearing about these things before they’re just pulled from the road and all the money behind these things just admits that AI cannot drive? Sadly probably a long while yet. These are DANGEROUS. This isn’t an isolated incident, if you’re new to this type of story. These things have been hitting people and killing sometimes dogs, and doing all manner of dangerous traffic maneuvers since their roll out. With no clear end in sight, one has to ask, whosoever thought this was actually a good idea? Blinded by greed…Snip below from another source, not my writing.
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Both vehicles advanced when the light turned green, according to witness accounts and video recorded by the Cruise vehicle’s internal cameras and reviewed by The Post. As the cars moved forward, the pedestrian entered the traffic lanes in front of them, according to the video, and was struck by the regular car. The video shows the victim rolling onto that vehicle’s windshield and then being flung into the path of the driverless car, which stopped once it collided with the woman. According to Cruise spokesperson Hannah Lindow, the autonomous vehicle “braked aggressively to minimize the impact” but was unable to stop before rolling over the woman and coming to a halt. Photos published by the San Francisco Chronicle show the woman’s leg sticking out from underneath the car’s left rear wheel.
“According to Cruise, police had directed the company to keep the vehicle stationary, apparently with the pedestrian stuck beneath it,” reports the San Francisco Chronicle.
Also from the San Francisco Chronicle:
Austin Tutone, a bicycle delivery person, saw the woman trapped underneath the Cruise car and tried to reassure her as they waited for first-responders. “I told her, ‘The ambulance is coming’ and that she’d be okay. She was just screaming.” He shared a photo of the aftermath with The Chronicle that appears to show the car tire on the woman’s leg. San Francisco firefighters arrived and used the jaws of life to lift the car off the woman. She was transported to San Francisco General Hospital with “multiple traumatic injuries,” said SFFD Capt. Justin Schorr. The victim was in critical condition as of late Tuesday afternoon, according to the hospital.
It appears that once the Cruise car sensed something underneath its rear axle, it came to a halt and turned on its hazard lights, Schorr said. Firefighters obstructed the sensors of the driverless car to alert the Cruise control center. He said representatives from Cruise responded to firefighters and “immediately disabled the car remotely.”
More from the San Francisco Chronicle:
“When it comes to someone pinned beneath a vehicle, the most effective way to unpin them is to lift the vehicle,” Sgt. Kathryn Winters, a spokesperson for the department, said in an interview. Were a driver to move a vehicle with a person lying there, “you run the risk of causing more injury.” Once the person is freed, the car must stay in place as police gather evidence including “the location of the vehicle and/or vehicles before, during and after the collision,” said Officer Eve Laokwansathitaya, another spokesperson.
The human driver who struck the pedestrian immediately fled the scene, and has not yet been identified.
links:
San Francisco Chronicle Coverage
More from the SF Chronicle.
Washington Post Coverage
Additional Chronicle Coverage
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if you ask me, these are horrible, avoidable, and unmistakably evil contraptions. doomed from the very beginning, and they need to be taken off the road. Each one of them also has a human driver in it, while this is happening, mind you – and in EACH CASE – THEY APPEAR ENTIRELY POWERLESS TO SO DO ANYTHING TO AFFECT THE FINAL OUTCOME… Consider that. So this one is a little bit different than anything I’ve read so far, this is the first time a regular driver has hit a passenger, and the robot car has come on the scene and created unfortunately more pain and unnecessary suffering for the person involved in the accident.