Cruise autonomous vehicles repeatedly interfered with San Francisco emergency responders through incidents including blocking fire department vehicles, driving over active fire hoses, and entering active emergency scenes, with at least 39 interference incidents reported in 2023.
Between April 2022 and January 2023, Cruise autonomous vehicles operated by General Motors' Cruise LLC caused multiple interference incidents with San Francisco emergency responders. On April 5, 2022, a Cruise AV stopped in a travel lane and obstructed a San Francisco Fire Department vehicle responding to a 3-alarm fire. On June 12, 2022, a Cruise AV drove over a fire hose in use at an active fire scene, violating California Vehicle Code Section 21708. On January 21, 2023, a Cruise AV entered an active firefighting scene on Hayes Street near Divisadero Street and approached fire hoses on the ground despite firefighter efforts to prevent it, requiring firefighters to shatter the vehicle's front window to stop it. The San Francisco Fire Department reported at least 39 interference incidents in 2023, including robotaxis stopping in front of firehouse driveways, blocking emergency vehicles, driving through police tape, driving into downed electrical wires, pulling into active fire scenes, and stopping close behind firetrucks. Both Cruise and Waymo have been running small-scale passenger services in San Francisco, with Cruise charging for rides and operating over 2 million miles. The incidents prompted opposition from San Francisco officials and emergency responders to proposed expansion of robotaxi operations.
Domain classification, causal taxonomy, severity scores, and national security assessments were LLM-classified and may contain errors.
AI systems that fail to perform reliably or effectively under varying conditions, exposing them to errors and failures that can have significant consequences, especially in critical applications or areas that require moral reasoning.
AI system
Due to a decision or action made by an AI system
Unintentional
Due to an unexpected outcome from pursuing a goal
Post-deployment
Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed