Update, April 11, 4:00 PM: This story has been updated to include a comment from the San Francisco police. Some paragraphs have been updated to reflect the new information.
A Cruise autonomous test vehicle was pulled over in San Francisco’s Richmond District this weekend for driving without its lights on. Video of the event was posted to Twitter on Saturday, April 9.
The post shows the autonomous Chevrolet Bolt EV stopped before an intersection being inspected by a police officer. As he walks away, the EV pulls forward and stops again, a few feet down the road, on the other side of the intersection.
As discovered by The Drive, according to a Tweet from Cruise’s official account, the test vehicle yielded to the police, then pulled over to the nearest safe location for the traffic stop. Cruise personnel was contacted by an officer but no citation was issued for the incident.
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According to a follow-up Tweet, and comments made to The Verge, Cruise works closely with SFPD on how to interact with autonomous vehicles in situations like these. Indeed, the company posted a 20-minute video to YouTube in November 2021 explaining the process, which involves contacting Cruise with a vehicle ID number, disclosing their location, and identifying the reason for the call.
We work closely with the SFPD on how to interact with our vehicles, including a dedicated phone number for them to call in situations like this.
— cruise (@Cruise) April 10, 2022
Carscoops has reached out to Cruise for further comment. We will update this story when they respond. San Francisco police, meanwhile, confirmed that the stop was effected because the vehicle was driving without its headlights on.
“On Friday, April 1, 2022, at approximately 10:00 pm officers observed a vehicle traveling without activated headlights at Clement St. and 8th Ave,” SFPD Officer Robert Rueca told Carscoops in an email. “Officers stopped behind the vehicle and discovered that there was no driver in the vehicle and no other occupant was present. During this contact, officers affected a traffic stop. The vehicle moved forward but stopped again to yield for the officers. During the stop, officers made contact with the remote operator of the driverless vehicle. Upon the officer’s notification, a maintenance team responded to the vehicle’s location and took control of the vehicle.”
It’s still unclear which test vehicle was being pulled over here and why it was allegedly driving without lights on. In January, Cruise published a video of GM’s CEO, Mary Barra, going for a ride in one of the autonomous test vehicles that operated in San Francisco at night. The company announced last month that these vehicles had delivered more than 2 million meals around San Francisco.
Cruise also said in March that it was ready to expand beyond San Francisco. Its CEO, Kyle Vogt, said that the GM-controlled start-up already had plans to expand its service to other urban areas before further expanding its robotaxis to less populous areas of the United States.
Lessons learned in San Francisco will be important ones, then, whose impact will be felt beyond the tech-happy Bay area.
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