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Cruise Agrees to Reduce Driverless Car Fleet in San Francisco After Crash
A week after regulators allowed expansion of autonomous taxi services in San Francisco, a Cruise vehicle collided with a fire truck.
Credit: Jason Henry/The New York Times
Less than a day after one of its driverless taxis collided with a fire truck in a San Francisco intersection, Cruise agreed on Friday to a request from state regulators to cut in half the number of vehicles it was operating in the city.
The setback for the driverless car company came just a week after the California Public Utilities Commission voted to allow the expansion of driverless taxi services from Cruise, which is owned by General Motors, and its rival Waymo, which is owned by the Google parent company Alphabet.
On Friday, the California Department of Motor Vehicles, which regulates the safety of the driverless cars, asked Cruise to halve the number of vehicles it was operating in San Francisco. The Cruise vehicle's collision with a fire truck the day before had injured a passenger in the driverless car. Earlier in the week, another Cruise vehicle got stuck in newly poured concrete on another city street.
Drew Pusateri, a spokesman for Cruise, said in a statement on Saturday that compared with the injuries and fatalities on the roadway today, Cruise "positively impacts overall road safety" and that it will provide state officials with "any data they need to reinforce the safety and efficiency of our fleet."]
From The New York Times
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