Cruise Disputes Report Its Robotaxi Blocked an Ambulance Carrying Patient Who Later Died

“Two stalled taxis without drivers blocked an ambulance carrying a seriously injured patient”, says the San Francisco Chronicleciting a paywall report from Forbes. The delay “contributed to a ‘poor patient outcome'” — the person died 20 to 30 minutes after arriving at the hospital, according to a San Francisco Fire Department report which the taxi company disputes.”

The report was obtained by Forbes, which recently published a story detailing accounts from San Francisco firefighters who say driverless taxis have repeatedly interfered with their emergency response. However, Forbes also reported that Cruz provided video that disputed the SFFD’s account of the Aug. 14 incident. The video, Forbes reported, shows one Cruise car speeding away from the scene, while the other remains stuck at the intersection with the right lane open to traffic. Forbes said it was unclear from the video whether the ambulance was able to travel in the open lane.

Hannah Lindow, a spokeswoman for Cruise, told the Chronicle that the Cruise vehicle that stopped did so to obey first responders directing traffic. “The entire time (the autonomous vehicle) is stopped, traffic remains unblocked and flows to the right of the AV. The ambulance behind the AV had a clear path to pass through the AV, as other vehicles, including another ambulance, continued to do,” Lindow said in an email. “As soon as the victim was loaded into the ambulance, the ambulance left the scene immediately and was never prevented from doing so by the AV.”