Two self-driving taxis block an ambulance. The patient dies. And now?
Two self-driving taxis stalled an ambulance on its way to a hospital, potentially contributing to the patient's death, according to a San Francisco Fire Department report obtained by Forbes. The crash involving two Cruise company vehicles occurred on Aug. 14, just four days after state regulators approved 24/7 public availability of autonomous taxi services in the city.
Rescuers arrived at around 10.45pm at the scene of an accident involving a seriously injured pedestrian, the report said. While there, however, Cruise's self-driving taxis occupied two lanes of a four-lane one-way street, forcing a police vehicle in a separate lane to move to make room for the ambulance to depart.
“The [patient] was readied for transport with life-threatening injuries, but we were initially unable to leave the scene because Cruise's vehicles were not moving,” part of the official report reads. “This delay, no matter how slight, contributed to an unsatisfactory [patient] outcome… The fact that autonomous Cruise vehicles continue to block entry and exit from the EMS hotspot is unacceptable. ”
Cruise representatives disputed the San Francisco Fire Department's report, arguing instead that the vehicles in the fleet did not hinder medical care in any way. “The ambulance behind the [autonomous vehicle] had a clear path to pass the AV while other vehicles, including another ambulance, managed to pass it,” a spokesperson for Cruise told PopSci. “As soon as the victim was loaded into the ambulance, the ambulance immediately left the scene and the AV never stopped them from doing so.” In footage provided to the NY Times, 911 maneuvered around a Cruise company vehicle about 90 seconds after loading the victim into the ambulance.
Public documents obtained by Forbes detail more than 70 instances since April 2022 of autonomous vehicles allegedly hindering a variety of emergency responses, including fires and restoring electric services. Furthermore, there is a big problem of liability, even criminal: if a vehicle with a driver obstructs an emergency vehicle, the driver is criminally and civilly responsible for his behavior and for the damage he causes. In this case, who is liable, especially criminally, for the obstructive behavior of self-driving vehicles?
Despite months of resistance from many residents and city officials, California regulators last month approved public use of self-driving taxi services like Cruise and Waymo in San Francisco. Within days of the go-ahead, however, autonomous vehicles would pass stop signs, produce long traffic jams and swerve carelessly to avoid pedestrians.
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The article Two self-driving taxis block an ambulance. The patient dies. And now? comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/due-taxi-a-guida-autonoma-bloccano-unambulanza-il-paziente-muore-e-adesso/ on Wed, 06 Sep 2023 19:48:41 +0000.