An unusual scene recorded in the city of San Francisco, in the United States, went viral shortly after being posted on social media. In the images captured by a of the Twitter, a self-driving car flees after being stopped by police in the US. The comical situation happened last Saturday (9) and was closely followed by journalist Seth Weintraub, who immediately shared the images on his personal page on Twitter. 411o38
In the footage, a company vehicle Cruise — autonomous vehicles division of General Motors — is stopped by local police officers who take a brief look inside the vehicle and try to open the driver's door, but to no avail. After a few seconds and to the surprise of the police, the car starts moving again, in what appears to be the beginning of an escape. The vehicle, however, stops a few meters further on and lights up the hazard warning lights, while it is again approached by agents who seem not to know how to deal with the whole situation.
Subsequently, the local police announced that the vehicle of the Cruise was stopped because the front lights were off and that the police procedures duly followed the protocol adopted in situations like this, not posing any risk to ers-by and drivers ing by.
In an interview with The Verge, spokesman for the company that owns the driverless car, Aaron Mclear, confirms the reason for the stop and also explains that the autonomous vehicle did not move away to try to escape the police, but to find a safer place to pull over. An attitude that, according to him, “few human drivers would bother to do”.
“The vehicle looked for a safer place to stop. An officer later ed Cruise personnel and no fine was issued. We work closely with the San Francisco Police Department to explain how to interact with our vehicles and also provide a dedicated phone number for them to call in situations like this.”
Aaron McLear, spokesperson for Cruise
The company said it still did not know how to explain what happened so that the vehicle's headlights were turned off at that moment. Among the main hypotheses are a possible accidental deactivation of the lighting or a failure in the process of detecting darkness by sensors. This error, however, is worrying, since the vehicles of the Cruise are authorized to travel only from 22 pm to 6 am, making headlights very important items for the safety of engers and third parties.
General Motors Initiative 504569
A Cruise is a subsidiary of General Motors which began offering robo-taxi rides to San Francisco citizens in early February. Despite the news being recent, the company has been testing its driverless cars in the city of California for years. The robot taxis Cruise they usually only operate from 23pm to 6am, according to the company.
Initially, the rides are being free as the company has not yet been allowed to accept paid rides. The company had planned to launch a commercial robot-taxi service in San Francisco in 2019, but failed to do so, and a new date has yet to be released – although it has implied that it will be in 2022.
Today, Cruise is licensed to operate only 52 robot taxis. It operates in about half of the city of San Francisco, excluding some popular and busy areas such as the Market Street shopping corridor. The time chosen for the operation (from 23 pm to 6 am) is linked to the fact that it is a period with less traffic on the streets, which will make the headache less if the car gets confused and blocks traffic. In addition, nighttime operation is less risky, as robot taxis are still being improved.
To use the vehicle Cruise, the enger needs to request a trip through an application. When the car arrives, they need to press a button to unlock the doors, allowing the vehicle to enter. The car does not move until engers fasten their seat belts. If the has any difficulty, it is also possible to trigger the in real time, which can remotely perform actions, such as opening the vehicle's doors.
According to the company's co-founder, Kyle Vogt, the experience is something never seen before. “Cruise’s overnight trips are smooth enough for a enger to fall asleep on their first day of public tours”, guarantees Vogt.
Later this year, the GM is planning to start production of Cruise origin, a purpose-built autonomous bus without traditional controls such as steering wheel and pedals. THE GM had previously planned to produce a version of his Chevy Bolt without steering wheels and pedals, but has since put that plan on hold while prioritizing Origin.
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Sources: The Verge, ELECTrek, CNN Brazil.
