Wednesday, November 22, 2023

things in the news are rarely good news, and yet, I feel it's important to relay the stories, for their implications (usually) and to keep you updated on some issues.. like this unreal facet of autonomous vehicile operation... the robot car can't gather information about emergencies.... like a person trapped under it. It happened, I shit you not

An autonomous Cruise vehicle trapped and drug a pedestrian down the road last month after that woman was hit by another vehicle  

In that incident, a pedestrian was struck by a human driver and then landed in the adjacent lane where a Cruise robotaxi was driving. The robotaxi initiated its brakes and came to a stop with the pedestrian under the vehicle. The robotaxi then attempted to pull over, dragging the woman some 20 feet.

The California Department of Motor Vehicles and the state’s Public Utilities Commission pulled all permits that allowed Cruise to commercially operate a fleet of robotaxis on public roads in San Francisco.

 Two days later, the company paused all driverless testing and operations across its fleet, which included Austin, Houston and Phoenix. It also halted production of its custom-built Cruise Origin vehicles.

 The company has been in crisis mode ever since, particularly as new reports have emerged that expose the company’s safety practices and potential flaws in its software. Cruise is also facing federal investigations into how autonomous vehicles interact with pedestrians.

https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/08/cruise-recalls-entire-fleet-after-robotaxi-ran-over-dragged-pedestrian/

Following all of this, Cruise decided to suspend all of its autonomous rides in as it continues to investigate what went wrong in the aforementioned case, and recently issued a recall designed to update the collision detection system in its robotaxis.


Billions are spent to make robot cars... instead of that money put to use hiring people as drivers, and giving high school students a job other than fast food work, giving EVERYONE who needs a 2nd job something other than pizza delivery, etc etc. 

Instead, corporations have wasted 10s of billions trying to make a robot car. Hey, here's a thought, tell anyone who wants a robot to drive them, to get a horse, a taxi, a bus driver, or use a train. Or Uber, Lyft, etc. 

1 comment:

  1. I am totally with you on this Jesse. Robotic cars are about like being on the roads dodging drunk drivers. Neither would survive here in the mountains!

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