In a world where driverless cars are being tested, it’s no surprise to find them on the streets. Yes, they’re being tested constantly. However, there’s one autonomous vehicle that’s confusing police in San Francisco.
A Chevrolet Bolt EV was driving the streets of San Francisco without its headlights on. This alerted police in the area and they decided to pull the car over. The police were about to go about their standard operating procedure for traffic stops.
Upon approaching the driver’s side, they noticed no one in the vehicle. Someone was able to catch a video of one officer saying that no one was in the vehicle. As it turned out, it was a test performed by General Motors for their Cruise brand.
Cruise is designed to be an autonomous taxi service with San Francisco as its testing ground. As it turns out, it’s quite smart and is able to identify the lights and sirens of emergency vehicles. It can pull itself over for police, even though it might not be violating any speed limits.
As police were leaving, they saw the vehicle leave while its hazard lights were on. According to a spokeswoman from Cruise, the remote command center received an alert that the vehicle was stopped by police and had to pull over to a safe location once police were out of the way.
Thankfully, the police did not give Cruise or its self driving car a ticket. Cruise also added that the headlights were not on because of a human error. They added that the issue has been corrected.
San Francisco and the Silicon Valley is a place where many startups are testing ideas for the future. The people in the area might be playing the role of ‘guinea pig’ for these ideas such as autonomous vehicles. With Cruise continuously testing, it’s only a matter of time if and when it can take off nationwide.
Autonomous vehicles are still a long way off from being the mainstream. However, the sooner companies like General Motors get started, the better. It’s amazing what the future might hold for those that don’t want to get behind the wheel.
Still, the concerns for safety remain. It will be a long time until the auto industry gets it right in terms of self-driving vehicles. Until then, it’s still in the trial and error phase.
