Police stop a self-driving taxi: the car drives off again and stops in a safer place

It will almost certainly be one of the taxis of the future, but it is still little known and, precisely for this reason, caused a great deal of astonishment when it was passed, by chance, by the San Francisco police.

It is a Chevy Bolt that has been properly converted by Cruise, a subsidiary of General Motors, into a self-driving taxi.

1. The future is with us: the driverless taxi that stunned San Francisco police officers

The car, in fact, is driverless. And a San Francisco police officer discovered this at his own expense and to his great surprise.

The officer had stopped the taxi because it was driving with its light off in the Richmond district. 

The policeman approached the car, realised that there was no one at the wheel, made his way back to the taxi, and at which point the Chevy Bolt leapt forward and ended up in a safer part of the street.

The astonishment of the officers was really great and tangible in their actions: they looked inside the cockpit, checked the vehicle, one of them took on the phone. But apparently without solving the mistery.

• The final revelation: an experiment conducted by a company for its employees

It was only several hours later that the police managed to get to the bottom of the truth and discover what was behind the mystery of the driverless Chevy Bolt.

The car is being used for an experimental taxi service for Cruise employees.

The company has not been fined, but an investigation has been opened to see if what happened is an isolated incident or there is something to be put right.

The whole hi-tech world is holding its breath to see how it will end. 

In San Francisco, although they are not yet very widespread, driverless vehicles are already a reality.

We still do not know what went wrong with the headlight system, but it is worrying, because driverless wehicles are only allowed to travel from 10pm to 6am, which obviously makes the headlight rather important to avoid the risk of even serious accidents. 

The first driverless taxis started to appear in San Francisco in February 2022. 

The introduction of these cars was strongly desired after numerous reports of assaults, and even more violent crimes, such as murder, committed against taxi drivers.