Raging human drivers slap, body slam innocent self-driving cars
Since the beginning of the year, there have been six collision reports involving autonomous vehicles officially filed to the California Department of Motor Vehicles.
Of those, two involve humans mildly attacking the car in question. According to state law, companies that operate self-driving cars must submit a report to the DMV detailing any such incident. Since the Golden State began keeping such records, there have been a total of 58 such reports, including the six in 2018.
The most recent incident involving light violence was in San Francisco at the intersection of Duboce Avenue and Mission Street on January 28 at 10:55pm.
According to the report, a Cruise AV was “stopped behind a taxi” when the driver got out, “approached the Cruise AV, and slapped the front passenger window, causing a scratch. There were no injuries and police were not called.”
Just a few weeks earlier, nearby, in the heart of the Mission District on January 2 at 9:27pm, a Chevy Bolt was stopped. The car was attempting to make a right-hand turn from northbound Valencia Street onto 16th Street and was properly waiting for pedestrians to cross 16th.
Suddenly, a “different pedestrian form the southwest corner ran across Valencia, ignoring the ‘Do Not Walk’ sign.” This man, according to the report was “shouting, and struck the left side of the Cruise AV’s rear bumper and hatch with his entire body. There were no injuries, but the Cruise AV sustained some damage to its left rear light. The police were not called.”
As per the state law at the time (which has since changed, the new law takes effect on April 2), a human driver was behind the wheel. There is no mention as to what the human did in response to this action.
Both incidents were first reported by the Los Angeles Times.
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