GM Cruise autonomous taxi pulled over by police in San Francisco without humans, ‘bolts’ off (U: Cruise responds)

Last week, a GM Cruise-converted Chevy Bolt without a driver was pulled over by San Francisco Police. In an unexpected turn, the car “bolted” …to a safe spot. Cruise responded below.

The original Instagram poster noted that this occurred in the Richmond District of San Francisco last week.

b.rad916: Confused SFPD pulling over an #autonomousvehicle in the Richmond District!! Then it tries to take off!! 😆 🚔 1 week

GM’s Cruise vehicles have been operating autonomously in San Francisco at night, giving rides to employees around the city. Until now we’ve only seen success stories. Recently, Google’s Waymo driverless vehicles joined Cruise in San Francisco.

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

Here’s Cruise discussing how the vehicles interact with police and emergency vehicles

There are some great takes in the Twitter feed:

I think the bigger deal here is that they didn't even get to rough anyone up. Will someone please think of the police for once — Franklin Tabor (@TaborFranklin) April 10, 2022

We work closely with the SFPD on how to interact with our vehicles, including a dedicated phone number for them to call in situations like this. — cruise (@Cruise) April 10, 2022

Wow, this is quite interesting and it seems Cruise’s vehicle responded as intended though it is still uncertain why it was pulled over in the first place. From the video, it appears that the car could have been pulled over because of defective lighting, although that’s just a guess.

What do you think? Is this a victory for autonomous vehicles or something to be concerned about?

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