Cruise unmanned taxis accused of blocking ambulance in San Francisco, patient dies

In San Francisco, two unmanned Cruise taxis blocked an ambulance carrying a seriously injured patient. He later died in the hospital. This is stated in the report of the local fire department, writes The New York Times.

The fatal accident occurred on August 14, when a man was hit by a car. According to the fire service, the situation was influenced by unmanned taxis. They were stopped in such a way that an ambulance had to move a police car to get through.

The patient was pronounced dead 20-30 minutes after arriving at the hospital, which is located about 2.4 miles from the crash site.

Instead, Cruise declared its innocence. The company provided a video showing that one of the cars drove away from the scene before the victim was loaded into an ambulance. The other car also did not seem to interfere with traffic.

The company noted that as soon as the victim was loaded into the ambulance, it immediately left the scene, and the Cruise car did not obstruct it. According to the video, the ambulance drove past the stopped Cruise car about 90 seconds after the victim was loaded.

Recently, it became known that Cruise will temporarily reduce the number of autonomous cars in San Francisco while investigators are investigating incidents involving its fleet. The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) asked the company to cut its fleet in half after a collision between a Cruise robot taxi and a fire truck responding to an emergency.