Reporter 丨Dong Tianyi
In full view of everyone, a Robotaxi suspected of violating the law actually "escaped"...
According to NBC BAY AREA, the cause was that the vehicle did not turn on its headlights during the drive, and when the police tried to talk to the driver, they suddenly found that there was no one in the car. The police then stepped forward and tried to open the car door, but returned to the police car without success. Suddenly, the vehicle started itself and drove away from the scene, and the police car then forced it to stop and come to the driverless vehicle again to check the situation.
Image source: Screenshot of NBC AY AREA report
The report quoted brandon Melim, the videographer, as saying that "the process was very surprising" because he had never seen a real self-driving car on the road and such a dramatic scene happened. "All the witnesses, including the police, were laughing, and probably everyone thought this 'funny' situation was funny." Brandon Melim said.
In the video, passers-by shouted, "Make no mistake, right? Can this happen? ”
It is worth mentioning that the above video content has also aroused heated discussion among domestic netizens. Some netizens left a message saying, "This incident can definitely go down in history, because this is the first confrontation between humans and AI." Some netizens also said, "In the future, there will be no more illegal stops, and the police will automatically drive away." ”
Image source: Sina Weibo
As the incident fermented, Cruise later said in a statement that the self-driving vehicle was not to escape the police, but to find a safer place to park. The company said it is currently working closely with the San Francisco Police Department, including providing law enforcement officers with phone numbers that can be dialed in special cases and studying how law enforcement officers should interact with autonomous vehicles in the future.
In addition, Cruise confirmed that the San Francisco Police Department stopped the vehicle because the headlights were not turned on, and said that the officer contacted cruise staff to solve the problem and did not issue a ticket.
Image source: Screenshot of social platform
In fact, this incident is not the first time that a driverless vehicle has been suspected of violating the rules. As early as 2017, Uber and the road test vehicles launched in San Francisco were repeatedly photographed running red lights. After the incident, Uber claimed that it was the fault of the safety officer who was sitting in the driver's seat at the time. But a document leaking from within the company shows that at least one red light incident at the time was due to the self-driving system itself, not the safety officer.
In 2018, an Uber driverless road test vehicle hit a pedestrian pushing a bicycle across the road in Arizona, usa, killing him on the spot. In the accident, both Uber's self-driving system and safety driver were at fault, as neither of them found the victim in time and performed emergency braking (the driver looked down at the phone at the time). Two months after the incident, Uber completely halted its self-driving road testing program in Arizona.
Image source: Visual China
But the accidents did not slow the commercialization of driverless vehicles. In February 2022, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) issued licenses to the autonomous driving divisions of General Motors and Alphabet Inc that allow them to use self-driving cars to provide passenger transportation services in the presence of a safe driver.
CPUC said that GM's Cruise and Google's Waymo have both obtained commercial deployment licenses, can charge passengers for fares, and can also provide ride-sharing services. Prior to this, Cruise and Waymo were only allowed to provide passenger services on a test basis, and fees were not allowed.
In response, Prashanthi Raman, Cruise's vice president of global government affairs, said in a statement, "(This is) another positive step forward." Our mission has been to launch driverless commercial ride-hailing services in San Francisco, which is what we will continue to do in partnership with regulators. ”
With the exposure of the above video, there is a view that the behavior of autonomous vehicles needs to be better regulated. "Obviously, the police are also confused when they encounter this situation, and they don't know what to do with autonomous vehicles." Stanford University professor Ronjon Nag said in an interview with NBC BAY AREA that the road specifications and driving standards of self-driving cars need to be improved as soon as possible, such as equipping the vehicle with a button that allows the police to shut down at any time.
Ronjon Nag further said authorities should also step up efforts to train police and other responsible personnel on how to control self-driving cars in different situations.
NBD car interaction
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