The California Motor Vehicle Administration (DMV) announced on its official website on Tuesday that it has ordered an immediate halt to the licensing of the unmanned vehicle company General Cruise for local testing and deployment.
(Source: DMV official website)
Regarding the reasons for this decision, DMV stated in the announcement that based on the performance of these vehicles on the road, the department believes that Cruise autonomous vehicles are not safe enough to operate on the road.
The California government also specifically pointed out that manufacturers of autonomous vehicles have distorted information related to vehicle safety. What's going on here?
This ban originated from an investigation by the California Department of Vehicle Management into an accident in which an unmanned vehicle collided with pedestrians and ran over and dragged for several meters. The accident occurred on the evening of October 2nd, when an unmanned taxi was driving in the right lane and another car was driving in the left lane, hitting a pedestrian who was crossing the road and parked in the middle of the road, hitting the lane where the unmanned vehicle was located. The unmanned vehicle was unable to avoid hitting the pedestrian and pulled it into the bottom of the vehicle.
The controversy in this case lies in the fact that the autonomous vehicle detected an impact event and urgently applied brakes, but subsequently initiated a "pull over" procedure. According to the introduction of DMV, the vehicle started again and dragged the person under the car for another 7 seconds, moving about 20 feet (nearly 6 meters).
The San Francisco Fire Department revealed that when rescue workers arrived, they found the victim trapped under the left rear axle of the vehicle. It was only after the company remotely shut down the vehicle that they were able to use hydraulic scissors to rescue the severely injured trapped person.
What made DMV even more angry was that on the second day of the accident, Cruise's representative met with DMV and the California Highway Police and did not disclose the existence of a "pull over" program for the vehicle. At the same time, the driving records displayed by the company representative only included the initial impact and did not show the subsequent situation of the vehicle being "towed with people".
Subsequently, Cruise also issued an official statement, calling this event an "extremely rare event" that has never been raised by regulatory and insurance industries, nor has it appeared in millions of miles of testing and simulations. Cruise further stated that according to their simulation, if the initial vehicle involved in the accident were to be replaced by an autonomous vehicle, the vehicle could detect pedestrians within 460 milliseconds, which is faster than most human drivers, and perhaps this accident could be avoided.
However, Cruise firmly denies the deliberate concealment of the "dragging facts" by the regulatory authorities, emphasizing that the company has been actively sharing accident related information with DMV and relevant parties. The spokesperson of the company also told the media that during the post accident meeting, the company representative repeatedly displayed complete videos to regulatory authorities.
The company also stated that the program includes steps to automatically pull over after an accident occurs during training, in response to regulatory requirements for "minimum risk conditions". This accident will be included in future training to help the program decide whether to pull over or park in place.
Unmanned vehicles have sparked multiple controversies
Cruise's autonomous vehicles were initially approved for paid operation in June 2022, and were subsequently approved for 24-hour operation in August of this year. This was originally seen as the beginning of the full commercialization of autonomous driving technology, but it quickly sparked social questioning of this technology. There have been a large number of short videos on social media showing "unmanned vehicles almost hit people" and "unmanned vehicles causing traffic congestion".
There was even a video showing that a dozen or so Cruise autonomous vehicle stopped motionless in the middle of the road with double jump lights. Later, the company explained that these vehicles encountered problems with wireless network connectivity.
In fact, in August this year, California's emergency and fire departments publicly called out that these unmanned vehicles were not ready to go on the road. They pointed out that there have been at least 55 incidents in recent years where unmanned vehicles have obstructed emergency order, including situations where these vehicles ignored warning lines, blocked fire exits, ran over fire hoses, and refused to give way to emergency vehicles.
As early as August this year, DMV announced the launch of an investigation into a Cruise unmanned vehicle colliding with a fire truck. The company also agreed to halve the number of vehicles operating on the road during the investigation period -50 during the day and 150 at night.
Of course, California's move is not intended to negate the entire autonomous driving industry. DMV also stated in the announcement that Cruise has been informed of the steps to obtain a new road permit, and those test vehicles equipped with drivers can still continue on the road. In addition, Google Waymo, which obtained a 24-hour operating license with Cruise in August, was not affected.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed said, "We hope that the outcome of this incident can lead to improvements in security measures. We welcome this technology, but the premise is that it operates safely and responsibly