Driverless car and motorcycle collide
motorcyclist gets the blame
An autonomous vehicle owned by Cruise, the autonomous car startup that was acquired by GM last year, struck a motorcyclist on San Francisco streets earlier this year. The motorcyclist was able to walk away from the crash. Cruise says that police at the scene determined the motorcyclist was at fault for the collision.
The Cruise vehicle was traveling in the middle lane of a three-lane, one-way street. It spotted a gap in traffic in the left lane and began changing lanes—but then the gap started to close as the vehicle ahead slowed down. So the Cruise car shifted back into the center lane.
Unfortunately, Cruise says, "a motorcycle that had just lane-split between two vehicles in the center and right lanes moved into the center lane." The motorcycle "glanced the side of the Cruise AV, wobbled, and fell over."
"We test our self-driving cars in challenging and unpredictable environments precisely because, by doing so, we will get better, safer AV technology on the roads sooner," Cruise said in an email statement. "In this case, the motorcyclist merged into our lane before it was safe to do so."
This is far from the first collision involving a Cruise vehicle. The company reported 14 collisions to authorities between September and November of this year. Many of these involved another car rear-ending the Cruise vehicle.
Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt has touted Cruise's decision to test on San Francisco streets, arguing that the company's software will learn the fastest if it's operating in challenging urban driving environments.
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