--- title: "Pedestrian Found Critically Injured Under Self-Driving Car" description: "A woman was found trapped and injured underneath a self-driving car — but the autonomous vehicle (AV) doesn't seem to be the one to hit her. " date: "2023-10-04" modified: "2023-10-04" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/pedestrian-under-self-driving-car" categories: - "Advanced Transport" - "Self-Driving Vehicles" tags: - "Autonomous vehicles" - "san francisco" - "Self-driving cars" - "the digest" --- # Pedestrian Found Critically Injured Under Self-Driving Car ![A woman was found trapped and injured underneath a self-driving car — but the autonomous vehicle (AV) doesn't seem to be the one to hit her. ]() *SAN FRANCISCO, CA, UNITED STATES - JULY 24: A Cruise, which is a driverless robot taxi, is seen during operation in San Francisco, California, USA on July 24, 2023. The self-driving service of âCruiseâ, the autonomous vehicle company owned by General Motor, is thought to be a step towards wider commercial deployment of a long-promised autonomous alternative to ride-hailing services such as Uber or Lyft in the US. (Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images) \Image: Getty Images\* ## In Undertow A woman was found trapped and injured underneath a driverless car — but the autonomous vehicle (AV) doesn't seem to be the one to hit her. As [*CNN* reports](), footage provided by Cruise, the self-driving car company that operated the vehicle in question, shows that the woman had been hit by a car being driven by a human, but it's unclear whether the AV rolled over her or if she merely landed underneath it. In the video, which neither *CNN* nor Cruise has published, the woman is said to have crossed a pedestrian crosswalk when the cars had the right of way, subsequently being struck by the human-operated car, which was to the right of the AV. She then, per the report's recounting, flipped over the human-driven car's roof, rolled, and landed on the pavement in front of the self-driving car. The driverless vehicle's brakes engaged as soon as the woman landed in front of it, but because she apparently fell out of the cameras' range, it's unclear whether its tires rolled over her or if she somehow ended up underneath its undercarriage. In a statement, Cruise told *CNN* that its footage proves that the woman had been "severely" struck by a "human-driven" car. As an official from the San Francisco Fire Department pointed out, the driverless-ness makes for a very strange case indeed. "There was no driver and no passenger in the car to be able to tell us what happened," Justin Schorr, the SFFD spokesperson, told *CNN*. "It’s a very unique type of response for San Francisco." ## Car Wars Schorr acknowledged that Cruise responded "very swiftly" and that the telemetric data, alongside the AV's camera footage of the incident, will be helpful in the investigation as the woman recovers from her injuries that he described as "life-threatening." Cruise operators were instructed by first responders not to move the car when they arrived so as not to further injure the woman, who was freed after the fire department deployed a machine it calls the "jaws of life" to lift the self-driving car off her. As SFFD Lieutenant Mariano Elias affirmed to the news outlet, this is the first such incident the city has experienced, though it's far from the first time an autonomous vehicle has caused trouble in the city by the bay. Indeed, as the department told *CNN*, there have been at least 83 incidents this year — including one collision between an AV and a fire truck — where driverless cars impeded the department in some way. There's no way to know how many times people have been injured by AVs because, as *CNN* explained, the fire department doesn't track those numbers. Since their introduction to the streets of SF, self-driving cars seem to have been nothing but a headache — although, as this situation shows, sometimes in totally unexpected ways. **More on AVs:** [*Driverless Cars are Biased Against Dark-Skinned People and Kids, Say Scientists*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()