The company left out some key details regarding the incident involving one of its robotaxis and a pedestrian.


On October 2, 2023, a woman was run over and pinned to the ground by a Cruise robotaxi. Given the recent string of very public malfunctions the robotaxis have been experiencing in San Francisco, it was only a matter of time until a pedestrian was hurt by the self-driving cars. New reports, though, suggest that Cruise held back one of the most horrifying pieces of information: that the woman was dragged 20 feet by the robotaxi after being pushed into its path.

The LA Times reports:

A car with a human behind the wheel hit a woman who was crossing the street against a red light at the intersection of 5th and Market Streets. The pedestrian slid over the hood and into the path of a Cruise robotaxi, with no human driver. She was pinned under the car, and was taken to a hospital.

But this is what Cruise left out:

What Cruise did not say, and what the DMV revealed Tuesday, is that after sitting still for an unspecified period of time, the robotaxi began moving forward at about 7 mph, dragging the woman with it for 20 feet.

read more: https://jalopnik.com/woman-hit-by-cruise-robotaxi-was-dragged-20-feet-1850963884

archive link: https://archive.ph/8ENHu

  • yA3xAKQMbq@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    self-driving cars have the potential to be much safer than human-driven cars

    And if car makers have extensively proven that this is, in fact, the case, they might be allowed on the streets.

    (arguably, they already are)

    Narrator: they weren’t.

    “Tesla is having more severe — and fatal — crashes than people in a normal data set,”

    And I guess this normal data set is including US drivers only, who arguably are … not that good.

    it causes proponents to get overly defensive.

    Uh, no. Getting “overly defensive” is your choice, and yours alone. “Look what you made me do” is really a terrible excuse for anything.

    • Not_mikey@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Your comparing two very different systems. That’s like going to a gas station grabbing some sushi that gets you sick then saying all sushi is dangerous. Teslas have less sensors then the cruise cars and aren’t trained on a contained specific dataset (just San Francisco) like cruise cars have been for over 2 years. For these reasons they are at least even with humans if not safer already and have been approved for self driving in the city while Teslas are far off from even applying.

      • yA3xAKQMbq@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        You post this: “And because California law requires self-driving companies to report every significant crash, we know a lot about how they’ve performed” as a comment to an article where it’s being revealed that said company covered up some kind of important detail about a “significant crash”?

        Okay 👌

        • Not_mikey@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Still better than the hit and run driver who caused all this and hasn’t reported anything.