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Dozens of driverless cars have been taken off the road in San Francisco after a “robotaxi” crashed into a fire engine last week.
Cruise, the driverless car subsidiary of General Motors, has been ordered to reduce the size of its self-driving fleet in the city by half after the collision.
The company had around 100 vehicles operating during the day and 300 at night, when there is less traffic, so will have 50 and 150 respectively under the reductions.
The order to shrink down operations follows a collision between a Cruise cab and a fire engine that had its sirens on last Thursday.
Greg Dietrerich, Cruise’s general manager for San Francisco, said the fire engine had been driving on the opposite side of the road and that the driverless car had not been able to brake in time once it identified the car.
He said: “The AV’s [autonomous vehicle’s] ability to successfully chart the emergency vehicle’s path was complicated by the fact that the emergency vehicle was in the oncoming lane of traffic, which it had moved into to bypass the red light.”
San Francisco’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), which has ordered Cruise to reduce its fleet size, said: “The DMV is investigating recent concerning incidents involving Cruise vehicles in San Francisco.
“The DMV is in contact with Cruise and law enforcement officials to determine the facts and requested Cruise to immediately reduce its active fleet of operating vehicles by 50pc until the investigation is complete and Cruise takes appropriate corrective actions to improve road safety.”
The city has pioneered the legalisation of driverless cars without a safety driver behind the wheel. California officials voted to allow Cruise and Waymo to operate 24/7 driverless taxis in San Francisco and charge for them earlier this month.
However, the vehicles have been involved in a litany of incidents.
Several Cruise vehicles brought a busy junction in the popular North Beach area of San Francisco to a standstill earlier this month, apparently after failures with their wireless connections. Last week, a car became stuck after it drove into wet concrete.
Waymo, the other company conducting tests, has not seen as many issues. In June, a self-driving Waymo car killed a dog that had run into the road.
Some politicians in San Francisco have demanded that the companies’ permissions be reconsidered.
Cruise did not respond to a request for comment.
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