On Aug. 14, two stalled Cruise vehicles delayed an ambulance from leaving the scene of a crash in which a driver had hit a pedestrian with their car, according to reports from the San Francisco Fire Department. The pedestrian later died of their injuries, which first responders linked to the delay in getting them to the hospital.
“The fact that Cruise autonomous vehicles continue to block ingress and egress to critical 911 calls is unacceptable,” one emergency responder wrote in a report. Cruise spokesperson Tiffany Testo countered that one of the cars cleared the scene and that traffic to the right of it remained unblocked. “The ambulance behind the AV had a clear path to pass the AV as other vehicles, including another ambulance, proceeded to do,” she wrote in a statement to SFGATE.
According to several reports written by first responders, first obtained by Forbes, emergency personnel arrived at Seventh Street and Harrison in SoMa and began treating a “critically injured” pedestrian who had been struck by a car. The patient was quickly loaded into an ambulance, but the ambulance driver was unable to immediately leave the scene, according to two reports written by members of the ambulance team.
Two autonomous Cruise vehicles and an empty San Francisco police vehicle were blocking the only exits from the scene, according to one of the reports, forcing the ambulance to wait while first responders attempted to manually move the Cruise vehicles or locate an officer who could move the police car.
Collectively, these interferences “contributed to a poor patient outcome, delaying the definitive care required in severe trauma cases,” according to one of the reports. The patient reportedly died of their injuries approximately 30 minutes after arriving at San Francisco General Hospital.
SFFD representatives did not immediately respond to SFGATE’s request for comment.
Just days earlier, the California Public Utilities Commission voted to expand driverless ride-hailing services in San Francisco. In public comments sent to the commission ahead of the vote on Aug. 10, scores of residents asked commissioners to limit Cruise and Waymo’s expansion, describing the robotaxis as “death traps” and a menace to disabled people and children.
During an Aug. 7 meeting to discuss safety concerns around autonomous vehicles, San Francisco Fire Department Chief Jeanine Nicholson told the commission that her department had already recorded about 55 reports of driverless cars driving dangerously close to first responders, obstructing travel or blocking stations.
“And you might say well, 55, that’s not a lot. Well, if it’s your family, it’s a lot,” Nicholson said. “And for me, it’s not just your family, it’s everybody’s family. I’m responsible for everybody in this city. And so if we don’t get to one person, that’s one person too many that we didn’t get to.”
We need public transit (trams) not self driving cars.
Cruise spokesperson Tiffany Testo countered that one of the cars cleared the scene and that traffic to the right of it remained unblocked.
Hell yeah, lemme swing my lights & sirens into the non-passing lane, confusing every other driver on the road about what im doing or where im going. I love pulling fast lane changes to get around someone, only to have the next 4 cars ahead of me brake left, right, & center because now IM the one ignoring traffic norms. My service expressly forbids passing on the right except for absolute necessity, because not only is that in violation of state DOT guidelines, but because the majority of ambulance accidents are side-swipe impacts from trying to steer around people blocking lanes.
People already freak the fuck out when they see lights in their rear-view, thanks for letting me know your autonomous product will not improve and has joined every other car-brained dipshit in ignoring traffic.
TL;DR: Cars blocked an ambulance from helping a victim of a car accident.
The video captured by Cruise showed that the ambulance parked behind the Cruise and did not attempt to pass the robotaxi in the rightmost unblocked lane.
If there is a lane open, and the ambulance waits behind a parked car for 90 seconds instead of going around in the open lane, is that really the parked car’s fault?
I know blaming the self-driving car is a fun headline, but maybe focus on the vehicle that struck and killed a pedestrian, rather than the one that wasn’t moving