Autonomous car and motorcycle collide in San Francisco

Cruise test cars assembled at the company's factory in Michigan

Yesterday it became known that a self-managed car, created by the company and a motorcycle, collided in San Francisco. Motorcyclist after the accident was able to leave the accident site on their own. But later he had to go to the hospital because of severe pain in his shoulder, where he was given the necessary help. The company that created the autonomous car claims that it is the motorcyclist who is to blame for the accident. Cruise was bought out last year by GM.

As for the emergency itself, the Cruise vehicle was quietly rolling along the road, in the middle of the third lane, without encountering any special obstacles. After some time, the car got stuck in traffic and began to change lanes, but then returned to its previous location.

In general, traffic jams are the normal condition of the roads of any major cities, especially San Francisco. A car with autopilot can change lanes to lanes without any problems. But the latter came from where they were not expected. Robomomobil drove in the middle lane, then began to rebuild to the left. At the same time, another car already in the left lane, behind which there was a gap, which enabled the autopilot to maneuver, began to slow down and the gap decreased. In this situation, the autopilot made the decision to return to its row.
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As for the motorcycle, he was driving between the right and middle row. The motorcyclist decided to reorganize into the middle row and made a side touch with a rover. Because of this, Motozkil lost his balance and fell. "We are testing our cars in difficult and unpredictable conditions, because in the process of driving the cars are getting better - in the sense that AI cars are being improved," the company said in a statement.

At the same time, the speed of the car was only about 20 kilometers per hour, the motorcyclist also did not move fast - at about a speed of 25 kilometers per hour. In this particular case, the motorcyclist could not rebuild correctly, which created a known problem.

In principle, accidents involving electric cars of this company have happened before. The company claims a total of 14 emergencies that occurred from September to November of this year. According to the corporation, cars with autopilot are not yet perfect, so they can be wrong too. But not in this case - here the motorcyclist clearly became the problem.

According to the experts who develop these electric cars, in each new complex situation the computer of the system is trained and becomes more perfect. At the same time, the company claims that it plans to continue to launch cars in places with complex traffic. Cruise is testing its cars quite actively, so you won’t be surprised at the number of incidents with them. “Our cars get into difficult situations 46 times more often than other cars with autopilot,” says the project manager.

He also cites statistics for October, according to which problems with traveling along lanes in San Francisco occur 20-40 more often than in other locations, including Phoenix.

The most famous accident involving a car with an autopilot system is an incident involving a Tesla Model S. This incident takes several months, but this is a good example of what technical problems can happen on an autopilot road. The fact is that the autopilot cameras were blinded by the sun, they did not distinguish the approaching object merging with the background, and the emergency braking system did not react. Then Tesla Model S collided with a wagon. “The high ground clearance, coupled with the position of the semi-trailer on the road and extremely rare circumstances, led to the Model S passing under the trailer, and the lower part of the trailer collided with the Model S windshield,” the company said in a statement.

A few comedic incidents occurred in November of this year on the streets of Las Vegas. Then a truck collided with an unmanned sightseeing bus. True, and in this case, as far as can be understood, the driver of the truck is to blame for the incident. That is a person, not a machine running AI. Autopilot bus provides for an immediate stop in the event that on the route of the vehicle there is an obstacle - a car or something else. The most interesting thing is that the incident occurred literally the day after the company Waymo (Alphabet) announced the start of testing of unmanned taxis in Phoenix.