Cop stops driverless car, driverless car seems to flee, confusion ensues

Welcome to the future, in which police officers have to learn to deal with self-driving cars which may not always cooperate.

An Instagram video published on April 2 shows police officers in San Francisco pulling over an autonomous vehicle operated by Cruise, likely because its front lights are off. The video shows the officers walking around the fully driverless vehicle, trying to open its doors before giving up.

Then, the vehicle takes off and drives another 30 meters or so before stopping after the next intersection. The police follow, and then we see the officers once again trying to open the driverless car's doors and perhaps turn on its lights.

According to Cruise, the car behaved as expected.

A spokesperson for Cruise told The Verge that the car wasn't fleeing the police; instead, it pulled over at the nearest safe location (notably, a human driver could get into a lot of trouble just driving off like that). Cruise also confirmed that the car's lights being off were the reason for the stop, and that the issue's since been fixed.

The surreal video attracted the attention of science fiction writer William Gibson, who tweeted about it on Monday.

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The situation makes one wonder what the protocol is in situations like this, both on the police officers', and the driverless vehicle's side, and whether new legislation is needed to avoid confusion in the future.

This is not the first instance of self-driving cars causing incidents in traffic. In 2018, a self-driving Uber fatally crashed into a pedestrian, and later that year, a Waymo self-driving car hit a motorcyclist — though in both cases an operator was sitting in the driver's seat.

Cruise, which is an autonomous vehicle company backed by General Motors, has started its driverless taxi service in San Francisco in February 2022. Waymo runs a similar program, but the difference is that Cruise's taxis are truly driverless, while Waymo's have a safety driver behind the wheel.