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SAN FRANCISCO – A pedestrian crossing a busy intersection was struck by a regular car Monday night and thrown under an autonomous cruise vehicle, where she was trapped for several minutes until firefighters freed her, according to emergency responders and a police officer from The Washington viewed video of the accident, the Post reported.
The victim was taken to the hospital Tuesday where he was in critical condition. It was not known how being trapped under the autonomous vehicle for several minutes may have contributed to her injuries.
The incident is the latest involving an autonomous vehicle in San Francisco, where self-driving cars from two companies – General Motors’ Cruise and Google’s Waymo – are widely used, causing fear when they suddenly stop at dense and crowded intersections, disrupting the normal flow of traffic of traffic. The cars have also disrupted first responders on multiple occasions, from rolling into areas cordoned off with caution tape to colliding with a fire truck on the way to an emergency scene.
Monday night’s accident occurred around 9:30 p.m. in downtown San Francisco, where the Cruise and another car were stopped next to each other at a red light. Both vehicles advanced as the light turned green, according to witness accounts and videos recorded by the Cruise vehicle’s internal cameras and reviewed by The Post.
As the cars moved along, the pedestrian crossed into the lanes in front of them and was hit by the regular car, according to the video. The video shows the victim rolling onto the vehicle’s windshield and then being thrown into the path of the driverless car, which stopped when it collided with the woman.
According to Cruise spokeswoman Hannah Lindow, the autonomous vehicle “braked sharply to minimize the impact” but was unable to stop before running over the woman and coming to a stop. Photos published by the San Francisco Chronicle show the woman’s leg sticking out from under the left rear wheel of the car.
The autonomous vehicle remained in place until officers arrived and rescued the woman from below. According to the fire department, the pedestrian suffered “multiple traumatic injuries.”
“The initial impact was severe and threw the pedestrian directly in front of the cruise vehicle,” Lindow said in a statement. “We care and are focused on the well-being of the injured person. We are actively working with police to help identify the driver responsible.”
According to Cruise, the driver drove off without stopping.
There were no passengers on board the cruise ship.
In August, California regulators approved Waymo and Cruise to offer a paid robotaxi service in San Francisco, allowing the two companies to operate in the city like any other ride-hailing service — just without a driver. However, shortly after that decision, federal regulators opened an investigation into a series of “concerning incidents” related to Cruise Vehicles in the city.
While the California Department of Motor Vehicles works on its investigation, it ordered cruise to reduce its fleet size in San Francisco by 50 percent – a major setback for the company. As part of this reduction, Cruise will only be allowed to operate up to 50 driverless vehicles during the day and 150 vehicles at night until the investigation is complete.
A DMV spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday about the status of the investigation.
In an interview with The Post last month, Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt said many of the incidents involving his company’s cars were “sensational” and said self-driving cars would ultimately lead to safer streets in a city where there is one Increase in human driver-related traffic fatalities in 2022.
Still, the spate of incidents has caught the attention of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Kevin Mullin (D-Calif.), who pushed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to tighten its regulations on cars and also collect more data about the vehicles.
In a letter last month, the pair said they had “serious” concerns.
“As sophisticated as such software becomes, the AV vehicles on the streets of San Francisco, which we both represent, have struggled to handle complex real-world situations,” they wrote. “AV incidents are not just an inconvenience; They endanger the lives of passengers, other drivers, pedestrians and even people who are not close to the vehicles and need emergency services.”