Driverless Taxis Blocked Ambulance in Fatal Accident, San Francisco Fire Dept. Says

Two Cruise driverless taxis blocked an ambulance carrying a critically injured affected person who later died at a hospital, a San Francisco Fire Department report mentioned, in one other incident involving self-driving vehicles within the metropolis.

On Aug. 14, two Cruise autonomous autos had been stopped in the correct two lanes of a four-lane, one-way avenue within the SoMa neighborhood, the place the sufferer was discovered, in accordance with the division report. It mentioned {that a} police car in one other lane needed to be moved to ensure that the ambulance to depart.

The driverless autos delayed transport and medical care, the report mentioned. The affected person, who had been struck by a automotive, was pronounced lifeless about 20 to half-hour after arriving on the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, about 2.4 miles away from the accident.

Cruise, an autonomous car subsidiary of General Motors, mentioned that it was not at fault. The footage Cruise shared with The Times appeared to indicate that one in every of its autos had moved from the scene earlier than the sufferer was loaded to the ambulance, whereas the opposite stopped in the correct lane till after the ambulance left. The footage additionally confirmed that different autos, together with one other ambulance, handed by the correct facet of the Cruise taxi.

“As soon as the victim was loaded into the ambulance, the ambulance left the scene immediately and was never impeded” by the Cruise car, the corporate mentioned in an announcement. The ambulance handed the stopped Cruise car roughly 90 seconds after loading the sufferer, in accordance with the footage.

Cruise mentioned {that a} police officer spoke to one in every of its staff by way of distant help within the car, and that the corporate was capable of navigate it away from the scene after the ambulance left. The Fire Department confirmed the report, which was first obtained by Forbes.

Aaron Peskin, the president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, mentioned that no matter what led to the sufferer’s dying, the “accumulative total” of incidents involving driverless vehicles was extra alarming. “All of them have a common theme, which is autonomous vehicles are not ready for prime time,” Mr. Peskin mentioned.

Cruise and Waymo, which is backed by Alphabet, Google’s guardian firm, started to supply driverless taxi companies in San Francisco final 12 months. The accident occurred 4 days after each firms obtained a allow from California state regulators to develop their companies to cost for rides in any respect hours in San Francisco.

The Fire Department mentioned the case was one in every of greater than 70 of autonomous autos interfering with emergency responders. San Francisco officers have protested the growth of driverless taxi companies since January, pointing to instances the place driverless vehicles blocked emergency autos and interfered throughout energetic firefighting and crime scenes.

Some metropolis officers have mentioned that these incidents are a small fraction of all instances involving driverless vehicles. The firms had been required to report solely collisions to regulators, not different incidents.

Since the growth of driverless taxi companies started, Cruise autos had been reported to have blocked visitors and to have been caught in moist cement. On Aug. 17, a Cruise car collided with a hearth truck. The subsequent day, the California Department of Motor Vehicles, which oversees the protection of autonomous autos, requested Cruise to halve the variety of autos it was working within the metropolis because it investigated the incidents.

City officers plan to file a movement for a brand new listening to on the service growth, Mr. Peskin mentioned. David Chiu, the town lawyer, beforehand requested the California Public Utilities Commission, the company that accepted the growth, to halt the plan.