https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/10/23019303/heres-what-happens-cops-pull-over-a-driverless-cruise-vehicle-general-motors

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Filed under:

  * Tech
  * Transportation

Here's what happens when cops pull over a driverless Cruise vehicle

New, 39 comments

In case you were wondering

By Emma Roth Apr 10, 2022, 5:07pm EDT

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Test Drive Robot Car Cruise Police pulled over the Cruise vehicle for
not having its headlights on. Photo by Andrej Sokolow/picture
alliance via Getty Images

It's been a little over two months since Cruise started letting the
people of San Francisco catch rides on its driverless robotaxis, and
one of its cars already had a run-in with police. In a video
originally posted to Instagram last weekend, the user captures the
awkward -- and somewhat comical -- interaction between the San
Francisco Police Department and the autonomous vehicle after it's
pulled over for not having its lights on.

After stopping the Chevy Bolt-turned-Cruise vehicle, a police officer
goes up to its window, tries to (unsuccessfully) open the door, and
starts walking back to his cruiser. The autonomous vehicle begins to
drive away in what at first seems like the perfect start to a police
chase, but then pulls over and puts its hazards on at a point farther
down the road. Police drive up behind the vehicle once again, get out
of the car, and then hover around the vehicle as they presumably try
to figure out how to turn its headlights back on.

    Welcome to the future. Cop pulls over driverless car (because no
    lights?) Then Cruise goes on the lamb. (via https://t.co/
    mtmsIeOAUP) pic.twitter.com/ecQ5xXuSnS

    -- Seth Weintraub (@llsethj) April 10, 2022

As Cruise spokesperson Aaron Mclear explained to The Verge, the
autonomous vehicle didn't drive away to escape from police -- it was
trying to find a safer location to pull over in, a move that most
human drivers can't get away with so easily. Mclear also confirmed
that the SFPD pulled over the vehicle for not having its headlights
on, and says Cruise has since fixed the issue.

"The vehicle yielded to the police car, then pulled over to the
nearest safe location for the traffic stop," Mclear said. "An officer
contacted Cruise personnel and no citation was issued. We work
closely with the SFPD on how to interact with our vehicles and have a
dedicated phone number for them to call in situations like this."

Cruise, a subsidiary of General Motors, uses LIDAR technology to
power its vehicles' self-driving capabilities. The company has been
using the cars to shuttle around its San Francisco-based employees
since 2017, but only just opened a waiting list to taxi the city's
general population.

We still don't know what exactly caused the Cruise vehicle to operate
without its headlights. Perhaps the car's automatic headlights
feature was disabled or failed to detect the darkness around it.
Either way, it is a bit concerning. Cruise vehicles are only
authorized to drive from 10PM to 6AM, which obviously makes
headlights pretty important.

In 2018, a self-driving Uber vehicle struck and killed a pedestrian
walking her bike across the road in Tempe, Arizona. Subsequent
investigations from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)
found that Uber turned off Volvo's factory emergency braking system
to prevent any interaction with Uber's self-driving software, but
it's unclear whether that contributed to the crash.

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