Humans Slapped and Shouted at Robot Cars in Two of Six DMV Crash Reports This Year
6th March 2018
Of six crash reports involving robot cars filed in California so far this year, two involved a human approaching the car and attacking it.
On Jan. 2, a Chevy Bolt EV operated by General Motors’ Cruise driverless car division in San Francisco’s Mission District was waiting at a green light for pedestrians to cross when a man “ran across Valencia Street against the ‘do not walk’ symbol, shouting, and struck the left side of the Cruise AV’s rear bumper and hatch with his entire body,” damaging a tail light, according to a report filed with the California Department of Motor Vehicles.
No one was injured and police were not called, the report said. The car was in autonomous mode but a driver was behind the wheel, as required by current law.
It would appear that not even in California are people down with the future.
On Jan. 28, a GM Cruise Bolt EV with a human driving the car stopped behind a taxi on Duboce Avenue in San Francisco, when “the driver of the taxi exited his vehicle, approached the Cruise AV, and slapped the front passenger window, causing a scratch,” the incident report said. There were no injuries and police were not called.
How a hand slap could scratch windshield glass was a subject the report left undiscussed.
See, now, this is where the Second Amendment comes in. If the standby driver had had a gun, he could have made this problem go away.