Autonomous vehicles are not immune to road rage, based on accident reports filed with the California Department of Motor Vehicles.
Of the seven crashes involving autonomous vehicles reported so far this year, two involved people angrily attacking Chevrolet Bolts that were being tested on the streets of San Francisco.
In an incident Jan. 2, a Bolt operated by General Motors' autonomous vehicle unit, Cruise, was waiting on a green light for pedestrians to clear a crosswalk.
The report says another pedestrian began shouting and ran across the street, against the "do not walk" light, before throwing "his entire body" into the rear bumper and hatch, damaging the taillight.
Several weeks later, an autonomous Bolt being manually driven by a Cruise employee was stopped behind a taxi. The taxi driver got out and slapped the Bolt's front passenger window, scratching it.
In both cases, no one was injured, and police were not called.
The other five accidents reported in January and February also were minor, with four of them blamed on the driver of another vehicle. The fifth happened when a Nissan NV200 owned by Drive.ai struck a piece of construction equipment while being driven in manual mode.
