Police Pulls Over Car And There Was NO DRIVER
In what seemed like an April Fool’s Day prank, San Francisco police officers pulled over a car for driving without headlights only to find no one inside. In a video that was posted on 1st April, apparently recorded by a passerby, the officers appeared bewildered as someone off-camera commented, “Ain’t nobody in it – this is crazy.”
One of the officers tried to open the vehicle door before walking back to his cruiser. The car then appeared attempt an escape, taking off and going past a traffic light intersection, before stopping again a little farther ahead and allowing the police car to catch up with it once more.
Welcome to the future. Cop pulls over driverless car (because no lights?) Then Cruise goes on the lam. (via https://t.co/mtmsIeOAUP) pic.twitter.com/ecQ5xXuSnS
— Seth Weintraub (@llsethj) April 10, 2022
Turns out it was neither a joke nor a ghostly encounter. Since 2018, California has allowed autonomous vehicles on the road without a backup driver behind the wheel. The vehicle in the video, a Chevrolet Bolt EV, belonged to Cruise, the robo-taxi unit belonging to General Motors.
According to a company, the headlights not being turned on was due to human error. They also said that they work closely with law enforcement to ensure that they knew how to interact with the autonomous vehicles and there is a dedicated hotline for the police to call during incidents just like this. Clearly the officers in the video didn’t get the memo.
According to Cruise, the vehicle had yielded to the police vehicle and then moved to the nearest safe location. In other words, they claim that the vehicle movement was intentional. Apparently, a similar incident occurred just last month, whereby a police officer pulled over a driverless car, and the interaction went smoothly.
Cruise has begun letting residents of the city hail rides in their driverless cars since two months ago and is already at the last stages of getting approvals to launch their commercial driverless service in the city. However, it looks like there are still some kinks to iron out and it will be awhile before this driver willingly gets into an autonomous car if there is no way of taking over control in the event of emergencies.
