The police officer’s encounter with the self-driving car was captured on film by a passerby.
San Francisco:
The San Francisco Police Department recently faced an unprecedented problem when an officer stopped a car driving at night with no headlights on, only to discover that there was no one inside.
The vehicle turned out to be a self-driving car and the police officer’s encounter was caught on film by a passerby, who posted the footage on social media.
The clip, which shows stunned officers circling the vehicle and looking through the window for minutes, has been circulated so widely that Cruise, the company that owns the vehicle, took to Twitter to explain what had happened.
It said the self-driving car “succumbed to the police vehicle and then pulled over to the nearest safe location for the traffic stop as intended. An officer contacted Cruise personnel and no subpoena was issued.”
In the footage, as police inspect the parked vehicle, someone can be heard yelling, “There’s no one in there, it’s crazy!”
A police spokesperson said that after the police stopped the car, a maintenance team got the car under control.
Cruise explained that the headlights were turned off due to human error.
Cruise was founded in 2013 and has developed software that allows cars to drive fully autonomously.
American manufacturer General Motors owns the majority of the shares in the company, valued at more than $30 billion thanks to investments from giants such as Microsoft, Honda and Walmart.
Since February, Cruise has crossed a major threshold to offer individuals the chance to book free trips on the streets of San Francisco in driverless cars.
Residents of the Californian city also regularly encounter robot axis from Waymo, the self-driving subsidiary of Google.
These camera-clad vehicles take passengers wherever they want, with a driver present but not touching the steering wheel or pedals.
(This story was not edited by DailyExpertNews staff and was generated automatically from a syndicated feed.)
