Cruise self-driving vehicles involved in 2 San Francisco crashes, including 1 with firetruck

A self-driving vehicle operated by General Motors subsidiary Cruise was involved in a collision with a San Francisco Fire Department truck Thursday night at an intersection.

One person, a passenger in the Cruise vehicle, complained of a headache at the scene and was transported to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, according to a police spokesperson.

The crash occurred shortly after 10 p.m. local time at the intersection of Polk and Turk streets.

A separate Cruise-involved crash occurred shortly after midnight this morning at the intersection of 26th Street and Mission in San Francisco, a company spokesman said.

Both came about a week after a controversial vote in which state regulators approved Cruise's request to expand its commercial service in San Francisco, despite concerns from city authorities that, among other things, the company's self-driving cars interfered with emergency responders.

The firetruck was responding to an emergency at the time of the crash, according Kathryn Winters, a San Francisco police department spokeswoman. Its lights, including a forward-facing steady red light, were illuminated and its siren was active, she said.

The Cruise vehicle entered the intersection on a green light, according to a company spokesperson.
 

Vehicles — whether human-driven cars, robotaxis, bicycles or scooters — are required to yield to emergency vehicles operating in emergency mode, Winters said.

Video from the scene's aftermath showed an airbag deployed in the Cruise vehicle. A firefighter can be overheard telling a police officer "it looked like it lurched" in reference to the robotaxi.

An investigation is ongoing.

Cruise said it had reached out to the rider and offered support and said it would be "in touch" with city officials about the collision.

It is one of four incidents involving Cruise vehicles in San Francisco since the California Public Utilities Commission approved the company's expansion request in a 3-1 vote Aug. 10.

In the crash shortly after midnight this morning, Cruise said its vehicle contained no passengers and had the green light when it was struck by another vehicle running a red, according to company spokesman Navideh Forghani.

On Tuesday, a Cruise vehicle drove into a construction zone and became stuck in wet cement.

Last Friday, one day after the CPUC vote, as many as 10 Cruise vehicles came to a standstill in the middle of Grant Avenue. Cruise officials said a nearby music festival had caused wireless connectivity problems, resulting in the cars losing a connection to remote operations staff.

The incidents come as officials express concern over autonomous vehicles interfering with emergency vehicles and seek a greater voice in how they're deployed on city streets.

Before the CPUC vote, San Francisco Municipal Transit Agency Director Jeffrey Tumlin said autonomous vehicles can operate with impunity because they are not subjected to the same rules and regulations as human-driven vehicles.

"We have no ability to enforce rules when AVs break them," he said. "AVs exist in a complete Wild West area of the current legal code."