With a human at the wheel

Cruise returns to the road after accident

Vehicles from the robotaxi company Cruise are returning to the road around six months after a serious accident. However, the cars will initially only be driven by humans in order to update map data and collect fresh information about the surrounding area, the subsidiary of US car giant General Motors announced on Tuesday. The first city is Phoenix in the state of Arizona, with more to follow.

In this phase, information about traffic lights, lanes and traffic routing, for example, will be collected anew, Cruise explained. As a second step, autonomous test drives with safety drivers at the wheel are planned. On this basis, it will then be decided in which city the vehicles will once again be on the road without people at the wheel.

Pedestrian dragged along
Cruise was a pioneer in robotaxi services and had ambitious expansion plans - but then a Cruise driverless car dragged a woman several meters at the beginning of October. The pedestrian had previously been hit by another car with a human at the wheel and thrown in front of the self-driving car. According to the accident report, the robotaxi braked immediately - but the woman still fell under the vehicle.

The Cruise cars are programmed to automatically pull over to the side of the road after collisions so as not to obstruct traffic. In this case, the software also decided to do this - even though the woman was still under the car. According to a report by the Californian traffic authority, she was dragged around six meters and the car reached a speed of over eleven kilometers per hour.

Accident trivialized
It was devastating for Cruise's reputation that these details only became known later, while the accident was presented in a more harmless light. GM replaced the top management of the robotaxi company and all driving on public roads was stopped. Cruise emphasizes that safety will now be the focus of the restart. In recent months, the vehicles have continued to be driven on a test site, among other things.