Self-driving cars create traffic jam in Austin

[john70t]

https://electrek.co/2023/09/22/cruise-robotaxis-created-a-traffic-jam-in-austin-heres-what-went-wrong/
According to the team at Cruise, the fleet ended up in a high-demand area, which also brought with it a slew of pedestrian and passenger vehicle traffic. As you can see in the video, one of the Cruise vehicles got stuck in an intersection while committing to a turn, thus further congesting traffic in three different directions.

Unfortunately, more and more Cruise robotaxis flooded the narrow Austin street to meet the peak demand, only to join in the traffic jam. But why were there so many robotaxis in this one specific area? Cruise states that at the time, there were limited routes going north and south through the city, and a detour from an alternative route led the EVs to the same doomed parkway.

Unfortunately, Cruise could not manually reroute the vehicles quickly enough, so there was nowhere for them to go. That being said, as soon as the company became aware of the traffic situation, it immediately stepped in and resolved the issue, leading all its EVs to exit the area and do so autonomously.


I noticed they also pull up and block opposing traffic from turning through onto side streets and driveways. Like a selfish jerk driver.
Not very courteous, that code...

vid: https://files.catbox.moe/az32h5.mp4