— The whiplash from approval to ban in just two months highlights the fragmented oversight governing the fledgling industry
Trisha Thadani / Washington Post:
SAN FRANCISCO — Two months before Cruise’s driverless cars were yanked off the streets here for rolling over a pedestrian and dragging her about 20 feet, California regulators said they were confident in self-driving technology and gave the company permission to operate its robotaxi service around the city.
This Thursday, just two days after the California Department of Motor Vehicles suspended Cruise’s driverless permits, the company said it would suspend all driverless operations around the country to examine its process and earn back public trust.
“It was just a matter of time before an incident like this occurred,” San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu said of the Oct. 2 crash. “And it was incredibly unfortunate that it happened, but it is not a complete surprise.”
Immediately after California’s Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) voted in August to allow General Motors’ Cruise and Google’s Waymo to charge for rides 24/7 around San Francisco, Chiu filed a motion to halt the commercial expansion, arguing the driverless cars had serious “public safety ramifications.”
Here in California, the whiplash from approval to ban in just two months highlights the fragmented oversight governing the self-driving car industry — a system that allowed Cruise to operate on San Francisco’s roads for more than three weeks following the October collision, despite dragging a human pinned underneath the vehicle.
California Assembly member Phil Ting (D), whose district includes San Francisco, said the DMV did “the right thing” by suspending the permits when it learned the full extent of the crash. While state legislators are grappling with how to control this rapidly developing industry, he said the DMV already has a rigorous permit approval process for autonomous vehicles. Cruise, for example, said it has received seven different permits over the past few years from the DMV to operate in California.
In California alone, there are more than 40 companies — ranging from young start-ups to tech giants — that have permits to test their self-driving cars in San Francisco, according to the DMV. According to a Washington Post analysis of the data, the companies collectively report millions of miles on public roads every year, along with hundreds of mostly minor accidents.
“It’s hard being first, that’s the problem,” Ting said. “We are doing the best we can with what we know, while knowing that [autonomous vehicles] are part of our future. But how do we regulate it, not squash it?”
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— Techmeme