Cruise, the robotaxi company owned by General Motors, filed a recall notice that was published today. The notice follows a June 3 accident in which one of its autonomous vehicles was involved in a crash while making a left turn.
Cruise says that the driver of the oncoming vehicle, a Toyota Prius, was found to be the “party at most fault” for the collision by the police, as they were “traveling in the […] right turn only lane at a speed that was greater than is reasonably or prudent having due regard for the safety of others on the roadway.” Reports suggest that the vehicle was traveling at 40 mph (64 km/h) in a 25 mph (40 km/h) zone.
It seems, though, that Cruise’s vehicle could have also done more to avoid the accident, as the company has updated the vehicle software to better react to similar situations in the future.
Read More: New Details Come To Light In Cruise Autonomous Vehicle Crash That Sent Passenger To Hospital
As Cruise writes, when making an unprotected left turn (that is to say, a turn at an intersection where the traffic lights do not indicate when a left turn is specifically allowed or disallowed), vehicles using the old software may “not have correctly predicted” nor might it have “been sufficiently reactive to the sudden path change of a road user violating demarcated lane usage.”
In the circumstance of the accident above, Cruise says that the autonomous vehicle saw the oncoming vehicle, predicted that it would turn right and into its path, and therefore jumped (as it were) on the brakes. Instead of turning into the path of the Cruise AV, though, the Prius went straight and crashed into the back of the robotaxi.
Although the collision led one occupant to be hospitalized, Cruise says that its vehicle had to choose between two risk scenarios and selected the one with the least potential for a serious collision at the time. That decision was made, though, before the Prius veered out of the right turn lane to go straight.
Following a software update on July 6, Cruise determined that the driving software will now select a different path if it is put in the same scenario. All of its vehicles have now been updated with the new software, and Cruise consulted with NHTSA to determine that a recall notice was the most appropriate way of letting the public know about the change.
Cruise became the first company in the U.S. to be allowed to charge customers for robotaxi rides. It earned a permit from the state of California in June.
