Cruise is reducing its fleet of vehicles in San Francisco by 50% following an accident between one of its self-driving taxis and a fire truck last week.
On Thursday night, one of the driverless taxis reportedly crashed with a fire truck. This prompted the California Department of Motor Vehicles to request that the company reduce its fleet by 50% and have no more than 50 driverless vehicles operating during the day and 150 at night until the state can complete an investigation into the crash as well as other “recent concerning incidents.”
In a blog post, Cruise said there were "several factors that added complexity" to the crash.
"The [autonomous vehicle] AV positively identified the emergency vehicle almost immediately as it came into view, which is consistent with our underlying safety design and expectation," says Greg Dietrerich, General Manager of Cruise's San Francisco Market. "It is worth noting, however, that the confines of this specific intersection make visual identification more challenging—for humans and AVs alike—as it is significantly occluded by buildings, meaning that it is not possible to see objects around the corner until they are physically very close to the intersection."
The fire truck, meanwhile, "was in the oncoming lane of traffic, which it had moved into to bypass the red light," Dietrerich says.
The Cruise vehicle identifed the fire truck's siren and "initiated a braking maneuver, reducing its speed, but was ultimately unable to avoid the collision."
Dietrerich didn't specifically address the 50% reduction, but said Cruise "will continue to work in partnership with regulators and city departments on EMV interactions to reduce the likelihood of incidents like these happening again."
An account called @Friscolive415 also posted a video from the incident
Beyond this accident, Cruise vehicles also got a good amount of attention last weekend when several seemed to stall while picking up passengers at the city’s Outside Lands music festival. In that case, the company was unable to connect the cars to support due to congested wireless signals near Golden Gate Park where the festival was being held.
The fire truck crash happened about a week after the California Public Utilities Commission voted to approve the company’s permit to operate 24 hours a day and charge for rides as well as expand its fleet, despite opposition from first responders. The approval came with some limitations, namely Cruise is only able to operate at 35mph and only in good weather. This week, San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu filed a motion to pause that rollout.