The California Department of Motor Vehicles today requested that Cruise halve its fleet of driverless cars in San Francisco, following “concerning incidents” involving the vehicles.
According to a statement released this evening by the DMV, Cruise has agreed to immediately reduce its operational fleet in the city by 50 percent. This will mean having “no more than 50 driverless vehicles in operation during the day, and 150 driverless vehicles in operation at night,” according to the statement.
The DMV also warns that the department reserves the right “to suspend or revoke testing and/or deployment permits,” if there is a risk to public safety.
A Cruise spokesperson confirmed that the company is complying with the request.
“We believe it’s clear that Cruise positively impacts overall road safety, and look forward to working with the CA DMV to make any improvements and provide any data they need to reinforce the safety and efficiency of our fleet,” the spokesperson wrote over email.
Aaron Peskin, president of the board of supervisors, said he welcomed reducing the number of driverless Cruise cars on the road.
“So, the state of California does have a pulse,” said Peskin. “I am pleasantly surprised, although it never should have been allowed to get this far, this fast. This is clearly an admission that San Francisco was right, and this technology is not ready for prime time.”
Today’s move from the Department of Motor Vehicles comes after a series of troubling incidents the week after the California Public Utilities Commission gave autonomous vehicle companies Cruise and Waymo the right to operate 24/7 across San Francisco.
On Friday, Aug. 11, the day after the PUC vote, nearly a dozen Cruise cars stopped in the middle of a two block stretch in North Beach, causing backups in all directions.
On Wednesday, Aug. 16, City Attorney David Chiu filed a motion for the California Public Utilities Commission to reconsider its citywide approval. The entirety of the Board of Supervisors had previously urged the state body to slow the rollout of driverless cars.
On Thursday, Aug. 16, Mission Local filmed another Cruise vehicle that froze on Mission Street before turning into an active construction zone on the wrong side of the road.
That night, a fire engine slammed into a Cruise car that had stopped in the middle of an intersection on a green light, injuring its passenger. The fire truck had its lights and sirens on, said police officials. On the same night, a cruise vehicle and a car collided at Mission and 26th streets.
In a blog post about the fire engine incident, Cruise General Manager Greg Dieterich said that there were “several factors that added complexity to this specific incident.” According to Dieterich, the engine was “in the oncoming lane of traffic, which it had moved into to bypass the red light.”
Additionally, Mission Local has obtained video of an early-morning Aug. 16 incident when multiple Cruise vehicles blockaded a Recology garbage truck on Hayes Street, refusing to yield and allow the driver to back up.
Here is this evening’s statement from the Department of Motor Vehicles in full:
Safety of the traveling public is the California DMV’s top priority. The primary focus of the DMV’s regulations is the safe operation of autonomous vehicles and safety of the public who share the road with these vehicles.
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 50% until the investigation is complete and Cruise takes appropriate corrective actions to improve road safety. Cruise has agreed to a 50% reduction and will have no more than 50 driverless vehicles in operation during the day and 150 driverless vehicles in operation at night.
The DMV reserves the right, following investigation of the facts, to suspend or revoke testing and/or deployment permits if there is determined to be an unreasonable risk to public safety.
These grifters view San Francisco as an open air laboratory for their lawlessness. Like AirBnB, Uber/Lyft, e-bike/e-scooter “shares,” Cruise and Waymo put San Franciscans at risk with their get-rich-quick schemes.
And how much does the city charge to be a research and development facility? How much do San Franciscans get paid for being research subjects? How much does the Breed campaign get paid.? How much goes into the private pockets of corrupt bureaucrats? It’s the miracle of the market
When we humans drive, the buck stops with our brains for moving violations of the law, not the car. Rack up enough points and you lose your license.
Not so for AVs. Their AI models, their brain, operates many cars. There does not seem to be any connection between the number of moving violations the brain is programmed to do and any kind of points on the brain’s license.
Is there even a DMV license number against which to accumulate points? This is special rights and all consideration for AI models, the letter of the law enforced on human drivers.
And this week a Cruise nobody’s home car drove into wet concrete on Golden Gate between Steiner and Fillmore. I think the car should have been left there and become a work of art honoring fascist idiocy and the out of touch lobbyist wing of the PUC (all but one of them).
I agree with Bad Car, No Donut. Why did the CPUC allow Cruise and Waymo to begin operating 24/7 when it’s clear there are still many issues to be resolved. The statement that Cruise’s spokesperson wrote in an email is even more disturbing: “We believe it’s clear that Cruise positively impacts overall road safety, and look forward to working with the CA DMV to make any improvements and provide any data they need to reinforce the safety and efficiency of our fleet,” No remorse for their mistake, when a human got injured. And what happened at the emergency that the fire department was heading to?
And what government entity is going to provide oversight to guarantee that Cruise is in compliance with this “request” from the DMV? None, is my guess. And I’m also guessing that Cruise will just ignore requests and mandates that have no teeth nor oversight.
And can we please stop with the “cars with drivers kill someone” argument so Cruise is OK” argument? There are about 350 Cruise cars on our roads, compared to tens of thousands cars with drivers. Driverless cars need to be better than cars with drivers or they should not be approved. It seems we get at least one ‘Cruise cars behaving badly’ news story each day.
We are allowing the Cruise CEO to tell us San Franciscans what we need on our roads. The deployment of thousands of Cruise cars will negatively affect public transit and the quality of life for many of us.
Let’s respond with a boycott and other legal means to thwart their efforts.
Because Cruise, Waymo and the +40 other autonomous vehicle companies in a rush to flood the streets with this half baked technology are not being transparent or accountable, we citizen journalists need to create our own data base and map of these increasing incidents. Will be illuminating when we can amass the data of accidents and events. Too bad Waymo and Cruise didn’t set up an accessible to the public mapping project for this purpose. Once again, Mission Local leads the way with facts and accuracy.
I started driving in SF in the 70’s. No collisions. No tickets. Yet I have to take a test to drive. While leaving DMV on Fell St. I see a car with NO driver things that make you go hmmmmm
ML articles the past two weeks about car issues in which no people were killed: seven, by my count.
ML articles the past two weeks about car issues in which a four year-old child was killed: none.
It’s entirely correct that we need more regulation of the design and operation of our deadly car systems. But ML’s coverage of that needs to include human operators (like the 71yo who murdered a little girl) and human design of our built infrastructure (like the terrible corner at 4th and King), not just the saturation coverage on AVs.
The Cruise CEO has made clear that they intend to vastly increase the number of their cars blundering around our streets. (As you know if you’ve actually read those previous Mission Local articles.)
They’re already causing havoc nearly every day with just a couple hundred vehicles. I think I’m not alone in being grateful that Mission Local is reporting on them now, rather than wait for the inevitable deaths to result from thousands of these two-ton oblivious robots being set loose in our city.
The party has determined what is and is not allowed topics of discussion.
Performing compassion after the fact for the tragic death of a child has been deemed valid. Did any urbanists notice the dangerously engineered condition until the tragedy? Of course not. They see that their “ship has come in” on this and are going with it, typical reactionaries.
Any discussion outside what’s been allowed, especially when the seamy underbelly of tech hegemony is involved, is deemed invalid, mentioning it a crime against the people.
Odd but your comment is hyperbolic (“killed” “killed” “murdered”). Mission Local’s coverage of these recent and increasing incidents is the opposite: factual, credible reporting. The data don’t lie.
……..to clarify: referencing Luis’ comment. Focus on the impact, the collision of a car or AV/autonomous vehicle (regardless of whether the driver is human or AI) with another car or AV. The injury/damage/fatality of the human(s) involved in such a collision remains A PRIMARY CONCERN. Same goes for any vehicle that obstructs emergency first responders, SFPD or SFFD, regardless of whether the driver is human or AI. An increase in recent incidents involving failures by AVs is the issue. This technology is not ready for prime time.
How many people will die from drunk or distracted drivers the year alone? This technology has the potential to end drunk driving forever.
When did San Francisco become so hopelessly conservative? “Don’t change anything, we already figured out the best way to do everything, thanks.”
“This technology has the potential to end drunk driving forever.”
Or not.
Could create a whole new class of traffic fatality. They need to bake this more before turning onto the streets. Drunk driving may = A.I. driving
Drunk and distracted driver are the exception, not the rule. Until these cars can truly think and react like a human they should be banned from our streets.