Taxi company Cruise issued a nationwide suspension of driverless operations in a social media post Thursday.
The announcement comes just 10 days after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced a federal investigation into the company after reports of pedestrian accidents involving Cruise driverless cars in San Francisco.
The Downtown Commission, which advises the Austin City Council on public policy for downtown Austin, met with Cruise executives to discuss safety concerns two days after the announcement of the investigation. Cruise representative Navideh Forghani said in an email statement there was no connection between the Downtown Commission’s meeting and Cruise’s decision to leave Texas.
From July 8 to Oct. 11, the Austin Transportation and Public Works Department received 43 complaints from residents and emergency response providers surrounding autonomous vehicles, with Cruise cars being involved in all but one of the complaints.
Out of those 43 complaints, 15 involved near-miss incidents, 10 described traffic blockages, seven safety concerns, five collisions, three nuisances and three concerning the cars ignoring Austin Police Department directions. Chemical engineering senior Ben Broekhuis witnessed one of these accidents.
“I saw one that ran into a semi on 27th a few weeks ago,” Broekhuis said. “The technology simply is not ready at this point to have completely autonomous vehicles roaming the streets of a busy city like Austin.”
Mathematics junior Gideon White said they were upset at the lack of communication between Austinites, the city and Cruise when it came to the initial road testing of the vehicles in the city.
“Were we asked if we wanted this, if we consented to a completely new thing appearing on our roads? We weren’t. It just showed up one day, and there was no warning — and now we’re the ones who have to navigate around these cars,” White said.
White also wishes the city would increase focus on public transportation initiatives that are more accessible and familiar to pedestrians.
“People know how to interact with the buses, it wouldn’t be a learning curve for people,” White said. “We don’t need more software solutions for human problems. We need human solutions for human problems.”
Physics freshman Chetan Mehta said all his experiences with Cruise have been positive.
“I think it’s had a positive impact (at UT). Speaking from personal experience, they’re cheaper than Uber or Lyft. Especially if you can nab their free rides in the first week that you sign up with them,” Mehta said. “I guess the only downside in terms of practicality is like they take longer routes. … But eventually, they get you to where you need to go safely.”
At this time, there is no information about when the suspension could be lifted and Cruise could resume operations in Austin.
