Videos of the collision shot by Cruise in San Francisco and seen by NBC News show that a hit-and-run vehicle struck a pedestrian on Monday night, throwing her into the path of a Cruise self-driving car, which then ran over her.
Tuesday morning, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital reported that the injured woman was in critical condition.
As emergency services arrived on the scene, the woman was visible in online videos and photographs of the incident.
The driver of the vehicle that struck the woman left the scene, according to a statement from San Francisco police, and they were looking into what caused the collision. Police did not immediately identify the party they thought was at fault.
The collision is the most recent traffic accident involving autonomous vehicles in San Francisco, a cutting-edge technology in which locals and government officials closely monitor any potential errors. Without any human drivers present, Cruise and its rival Waymo run fleets of robotaxis around the city.
While the companies have emphasized their safety record, city officials have criticized the driverless cars for occasionally becoming confused and blocking emergency vehicles. In contrast, no one has died while using the Cruise or Waymo cars, while fatalities involving human drivers are on the rise locally and nationally.
According to police and the Cruise footage, the collision took place at the junction of 5th and Market Streets on Monday at about 9:30 p.m. PT. There are many lanes of traffic at this busy crossroads going in both directions.
In a statement, Cruise claimed that the human-driven car struck the pedestrian as it was moving in the lane directly to its left.
Videos of the crash taken by the car’s different cameras, including a front-facing camera and a camera facing the car’s left side, were made available to NBC News by Cruise and seemed to support that narrative. The pedestrian’s collision with the human-driven car is seen in the horrific videos.
According to the films, at the time of the collisions, the front of the Cruise car was around one-half of a car length behind the front of the human-driven car.
“The pedestrian was propelled in front of the AV by the severe initial impact. The automated vehicle, or AV, subsequently used severe braking to lessen the impact, said Cruise.
A Cruise automobile was photographed by the San Francisco Chronicle with a body beneath its rear axle. In a statement, the police claimed that they had requested that Cruise not relocate its vehicle.
“At the scene of any car collision, we gather evidence to document what happened. The car was retained in its stopped position because of this evidence, which shows where the vehicle or vehicles were before, during, and after the incident, according to the police.
At the time, the robotaxi had no passengers, according to the authorities.
Other human drivers have similarly disregarded the need to remain at the locations of crashes involving autonomous vehicles. According to reports produced by workers of the tech companies and submitted to the California Department of Motor Vehicles, NBC News estimated in March that there will be 36 occasions in 2022 in which a person operating a car or truck leaves the scene of an accident involving an autonomous vehicle.
General Motors-owned startup Cruise announced that it was helping with the probe.
The injured person is our primary concern, and we are actively collaborating with law enforcement to find the at-fault driver, the business stated in a statement.