San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Study of crash that hit brakes on era of self-driving cars
‘Root-cause analysis’ presents most detailed summary yet of the incident that led to suspension of Cruise operations in California
San Francisco entered a new era of self-driving cars on Aug. 10 when state regulators granted Cruise and Waymo unlimited commercial expansion in the city. The decision by the California Public Utilities Commission marked a major victory for the companies, and the emerging autonomous vehicle industry, as their robotaxis were suddenly allowed to operate paid, driverless ride-hailing in San Francisco at all hours.
Fifty-three days later, at about 9:30 p.m., a driverless Cruise car nicknamed “Panini” struck a jaywalking pedestrian near the intersection of Market and Fifth streets, setting General Motors-owned Cruise into a tailspin. Though the Oct. 2 crash was initiated by a human hit-and-run driver, Cruise’s handling of the incident led to its indefinite suspension in California.
On Jan. 25, Cruise made public a technical root-cause analysis by Exponent Inc., a Menlo Park-based engineering firm, that offers the most complete picture of the incident. rather than stay put, as the vehicle would have done had it accurately detected a frontal collision.
The root-cause analysis acknowledges that the vehicle shouldn’t have pulled over even after it detected a side collision because it “was already occupying the outermost lane and therefore, satisfied the location requirement for an outermost lane stop.”
The robotaxi continued its attempt to pull over because Cruise’s road mapping “mislabeled” the lane’s outermost edge. This led the AV to believe that it still needed to pull over, despite the adjacent bike lane leaving no room to its right to pull over, according to the analysis.”
3.8 seconds after Cruise AV strikes woman: The Cruise AV’s traction control system activates “due to the pedestrian physically resisting the motion of the vehicle,” according to the report. Two seconds later, the robotaxi initiates an “immediate stop” after its wheel speed sensors register an offset in the wheel rotation of the car’s left-rear wheel compared with its other wheels.
8.8 seconds after Cruise AV strikes woman: The Cruise vehicle makes its final complete stop, dragging the woman about another 20 feet as she’s pinned under the vehicle. The vehicle reaches a maximum speed of 7.7 mph before its final stop. The Nissan driver flees the scene before emergency responders arrive.
Photographs and video of the incident’s aftermath show the Cruise vehicle had its front wheels positioned straight ahead in its final, complete stop, with the left rear wheel on top of the woman’s left leg. San Francisco firefighters used the Jaws of Life to lift the vehicle off the woman, who suffered serious injuries in the crash.
The root-cause analysis said a human driver in the Cruise car’s position likely wouldn’t have avoided the pedestrian after the Nissan driver struck her. The analysis, though, also acknowledges a human driver may have reacted more cautiously before and after the crash.
“After the AV contacted the pedestrian, an alert and attentive human driver would be aware that an impact of some sort had occurred and would not have continued driving without further investigating the situation,” the analysis concludes.
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