Are Cruise's self-driving cars ready for prime time?

The City claims that Cruise’s self-driving cars are “technologically unable” to pull over to the curb when picking up or dropping off passengers — a claim Cruise disputes — creating the potential for gridlock and safety hazards. This is especially concerning to The City because Cruise’s permit may not require the company to seek additional regulatory approvals if it wants to deploy more autonomous vehicles (AVs) in San Francisco, adjust its operating hours or expand its service area to include downtown. 

And in a revelation straight out of science fiction, city officials have determined that driverless vehicles cannot be cited for moving violations under current California law. That means if an AV without a safety driver is caught running a red light, there will be no fines, no points on anyone’s license and no clear lines of accountability for the autonomous vehicle operator. 

Without addressing these issues, The City argued in a letter to the California Public Utilities Commission, Cruise’s commercial deployment could amount to a repeat of the arrival of Uber and Lyft a decade ago. That new transportation technology, The City wrote, “undermined San Francisco’s climate goals, reduced transportation options for people who use wheelchairs, and significantly increased congestion and travel time delays on San Francisco streets used for robust public transit services.”

Nonetheless, the CPUC last week approved Cruise’s application to begin offering paid ride-hail service in San Francisco, setting the stage for fully self-driving cars to begin competing with taxis and Ubers. The decision by the CPUC, the state agency that regulates commercial transportation, will make San Francisco the first major city in the U.S. to host robotaxis, regardless of The City's protestations. 

Cruise, like autonomous vehicle competitor Waymo, is already offering free rides in driverless vehicles to a select group of San Franciscans. The company’s new permit will essentially allow it to continue operating as is, but now, it will be allowed to collect fares for rides. 

Initially, the program will deploy 30 modified electric Chevy Bolts whose steering wheels miraculously turn themselves. They will roam The City picking up passengers from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., traveling at a maximum of 30 mph. They will not be allowed to operate in dense fog or heavy rain. 

Should Cruise want to increase its fleet, it will not require new approvals from the CPUC unless the agency determines the additional vehicles "materially affect" the safety regulations in the approved permit, a CPUC spokesperson said. 

Cruise, a subsidiary of General Motors, says paid rides will begin in the coming weeks and that members of the public will be able to sign up on the company’s website. Currently, demand from the public far outstrips the number of vehicles, so not everyone who signs up will be selected to download the app. Rides will be priced competitively with existing ride-hail services, the company said.  

To start, Cruise robotaxis will only operate in a service area roughly encompassing the northwestern neighborhoods of San Francisco, including much of the Sunset, the Richmond, the Western Addition and Pacific Heights. 

In an earlier letter to the commission, The City took issue with Cruise’s initial service area, saying it “excludes nearly all of San Francisco’s designated Equity Priority Communities” and that it “does not reflect San Francisco’s racial and ethnic diversity.” Cruise has said it eventually intends to provide ride-hail service across the entire city. 

Should Cruise want to expand its service area to include downtown San Francisco or extend its operating hours, it may be able to do so through a procedural action by CPUC staff, not a full hearing and vote by the commission. It would depend, once again, on whether the agency determines the change will "materially affect" Cruise's permit. 

Another theme of criticism in San Francisco’s correspondence, which came jointly from San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, the Mayor’s Office of Disability, and the Police and Fire departments, was the lack of wheelchair access in Cruise’s vehicles — a point echoed in a letter from Disability Rights California. (Cruise is developing a custom-built AV, the Origin, that will be fully wheelchair accessible, the company said in its response letter.)

Other cities, including Los Angeles, Sacramento and Oakland also wrote to express concerns about Cruise’s permit, as did the San Francisco Taxi Workers Alliance.

However, Cruise received letters of support from organizations representing the elderly and the visually impaired, who said autonomous ride-hail service could improve mobility options for those populations. The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, the Golden Gate Restaurant Association and several other local and state organizations also submitted letters of support on behalf of Cruise.    

In its final letter to the commission, San Francisco praised Cruise's driving behavior overall, writing, "the driverless Cruise AV appears to generally operate as a cautious and compliant defensive driver," before taking issue with the company's pickup and drop-off practices. In a review of 85 driverless Cruise pickups and drop-offs captured on video, not once did the vehicle pull over to the curb, even when curb space was available, The City found.

“Cruise’s current approach to passenger pickup and drop-off, stopping exclusively in the travel lane even when curb space is available, is below the level expected for human drivers,” The City wrote to the CPUC. “SFFD is extremely concerned about vehicles stopping in travel lanes and the potential negative impact of this driving behavior on fire department response times,” the letter continues.

Cruise denies that its vehicles cannot pull to the curb for pickups and drop-offs. “The Cruise AV is designed to first look for available curb space to which it can legally pull over, and pull out of lane when there is an available, legal pullover location for passenger loading and drop-off,” spokesperson Hannah Lindow wrote in an email. In its response letter to the CPUC, Cruise also highlighted that state vehicle code allows commercial vehicles to stop in the travel lane when “reasonably necessary” for loading and unloading passengers. 

In its correspondence, The City highlighted three additional incidents where Cruise vehicles appeared to engage in unsafe driving behavior. 

On one occasion, a Cruise vehicle passing through a construction zone idled in a crosswalk for five minutes. In another incident, a Cruise vehicle blocked the path of a firetruck responding to a blaze, delaying it for about 30 seconds. And in yet another incident, captured on video, a Cruise vehicle failed to properly yield to police officers, accelerating to the next block before pulling over. 

These examples are especially concerning to The City because, following the episode where a Cruise vehicle failed to yield to the police, city officials uncovered “an extraordinary gap in California law,” according to their correspondence with the CPUC. When a law enforcement officer cites a driver for a moving violation like speeding, running a red light or making an illegal turn, the officer must prepare a written court order that includes the driver’s name, address and signature. This procedure is impossible without a human driver; therefore driverless cars cannot be cited for moving violations.   

Spokespeople for SFMTA, the City Attorney's Office and the Police Department confirmed that this is The City’s interpretation of the law. Police spokesperson Adam Lobsinger provided an autonomous vehicle guide distributed to police officers with following instructions: “If you witness a moving violation by an autonomous vehicle, you may make a traffic stop. No citation can be issued at this time if the vehicle has no one in the driver’s seat,” the guide reads, before instructing officers to make a written report of the incident. Police officers can cite AVs for parking violations, including double-parking. 

The California Department of Motor Vehicles did not directly address a question asking whether AVs can be cited for moving violations. Instead, the DMV responded in an email that AVs must be designed to comply with California vehicle code and must have a plan for interacting with law enforcement. "When there is an unreasonable risk to public safety," the agency wrote, "the DMV can immediately suspend or revoke permits."

As driverless ride-hail service gets underway, San Francisco is calling for changes to traffic laws to account for AVs. The City will continue lobbying the CPUC to explicitly limit the number of vehicles Cruise can deploy in San Francisco, in order to head off the exponential growth the company has said it is targeting in investor presentations. SFMTA hopes to convene meetings to discuss its concerns about passenger pickup and drop-off and emergency vehicle access with Cruise. 

In its correspondence, The City conceded that unsafe driving behaviors like double-parking are “common among human drivers." But The City made clear it expects more from robots. “Automated driving developers must not program errors in human judgment into robot cars as standard driving practice.”