(RepublicanPress.org) – On October 31, GM Authority announced that General Motors’ self-driving subsidiary Cruise crossed the five million driverless-mile mark. The automated vehicle had been operating in San Francisco, Austin, and Phoenix — but California put a halt on the car, pulling its driverless testing permits. A recent accident on October 2 caused concern over the safety of permitting self-driving taxis in the City by the Bay.
On November 7, Cruise recalled 950 of its cars to improve its software in order to try and prevent a similar occurrence in the future. At the beginning of October, a traditional car driving next to the Cruise car hit a pedestrian, knocking her to the ground in front of the self-driving vehicle. The automated car recognized there had been a crash and tried to pull over on the side of the road. Unfortunately, the vehicle didn’t know it was dragging the woman along with it. Instead of pulling over, the Cruise AV should have remained still.
GM recalls nearly 1,000 driverless cars after San Francisco collision https://t.co/IK9sY9mfc3
— The Hill (@thehill) November 8, 2023
The company stopped operations at the end of the month to assess the situation and address the underlying risk to pedestrians in the future. Cruise determined the risk of a similar situation occurring was once every 10 million to 100 million miles driven. Still, the company said it was working to lessen the risk even further. In the meantime, Cruise expected to issue further recalls and promised to keep the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) informed along the way.
According to The Hill, the California Department of Motor Vehicles gave the company a list of changes it needed to implement to earn back permission to operate the driverless vehicles on the roads of the Golden State. There are reportedly 600 autonomous cars in operation in different parts of the country. However, while Cruise continues its safety testing, all of its vehicles will have drivers inside on California roads.
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