Robotaxis Slated For Nashville Launch Banned In Liberal California

Image Credit: getcruise.com

The Tennessee Conservative Staff –

In July, GM-backed company Cruise announced plans to expand their growth by bringing self-driving taxis to Nashville. On Tuesday, however, Cruise experienced a setback as California suspended its permits after a pedestrian was left critically injured in a San Francisco accident involving one of their vehicles.

According to a statement released by the California Department of Motor Vehicles, the autonomous vehicles are “not safe for the public’s operation.” The DMV also said the company was not forthcoming about potential hazards of their self-driving taxis.

On October 2, a female pedestrian was hit by a car driven by a human driver. The impact of that hit threw her into the path of a Cruise robotaxi. She was pinned under the vehicle, which initially stopped for an unspecified amount of time, and then began to move again, dragging her for 20 feet.

This accident was not the first for one of Cruise’s self-driving taxis; previous reports show a collision with a fire truck, along with other issues such as blocking traffic due to poor cellular reception and interference with emergency workers and construction crews.

Cruise has already been testing its self-driving cars in Nashville with human backup drivers. Also on October 2, one of their vehicles crashed into an apartment building in Midtown after being hit by a truck. The company said the vehicle was not in self-driving mode at the time.

However, concern over the ethics of Cruise management is also at the forefront of the robotaxi debate. Following the San Francisco accident, the California DMV alleged that Cruise misled them about what happened in the incident.

They allege that Cruise submitted a video of the incident that had been edited to leave out the portion of time when the car was dragging the pedestrian. The company claims they were just trying to get out the necessary information for law enforcement to apprehend the hit-and-run driver responsible for the initial accident.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has also launched an investigation into a number of different reported issues with the company.

In response, Cruise announced that they would temporarily suspend all driverless operation across the country while they worked to correct possible safety issues and regain the trust of the public. 

“We have decided to proactively pause driverless operations across all of our fleets while we take time to examine our processes, systems, and tools and reflect on how we can better operate in a way that will earn public trust,” the company released in a statement on X on Thursday night.

The autonomous vehicles will continue to run with human drivers for now, according to the company.

A company representative told The Tennessean that they had “nothing to share on our plans for Nashville.”