Video from San Francisco shows Uber’s self-driving vehicle running red light

According to California law cars need a permit if they are “autonomous vehicles” that can drive “without the active physical control of monitoring of a natural person”.

However, California has some of the strictest autonomous driving rules in the US and the state’s DMV does not have Uber included among the companies that have obtained permits to test their vehicles on public roads.

Getting a DMV permit to test autonomous cars is straightforward, requiring proof of $5 million in insurance and verification that test drivers are adequately trained.

Safety was sure to be front and center: Dash cam video posted online showed a self-driving Uber run a red light Wednesday, the same day the company launched the pilot program with several Volvo SUVs. They hit the roads in San Francisco on Wednesday. They went on to say testing “must cease until Uber complies”.

California’s DMV has issued permits to 20 companies for tests of autonomous vehicles on public roads, mostly traditional automakers and tech companies.

All of the company’s autonomous vehicles, however, come with a human behind the wheel-in case of emergency. Those vehicles still had a safety driver on board who can take control if necessary, as well as a company engineer.

Just passed a “self-driving” Uber that lurched into the intersection on Van Ness, on a red, almost hitting my Lyft.

A second incident happened to Twitter user Annie Gaus, who stated that the Lyft auto she was in had nearly been hit by an Uber vehicle as her ride went through the intersection. Uber released a statement to Buzzfeed saying that the auto was being controlled by a person when it ran the red light.

In another recent survey, the consulting firm Altman Vilandrie found that 64 percent of consumers would not purchase an automated vehicle, and 57 percent wouldn’t even consider riding one, as Nathaniel Mott reported for the Monitor.

“I don’t think anybody has a good understanding of how this works in a city context”, she added. Before accepting the trip via the app, the customer will be able to choose whether they want to use the autonomous auto or would rather use a standard vehicle. This is why we believe so much in making the roads safer by building self-driving Ubers.

However, passengers won’t be completely on their own with the self-driving auto – an Uber engineer will also be present to take over if and when needed.

A spokewoman for the company did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter.

It’s unclear how law enforcement may address these kinds of violations.

The San Francisco pilot is apparently being limited to the downtown area as a start, but will be expanded following early success, according to the company.

We have no reason to assume Uber is lying about what happened, but even so, the timing of the incident could not have been any worse.

The ride-hailing company plans to bring a “handful” of its self-driving Volvo XC90s to the Bay Area, with an Uber employee ready to take the wheel if the technology fails. The footage doesn’t show whether the vehicle was in self-driving mode at the time or was being controlled by a person.

“First comes technology, then comes policy”.

San Francisco is a very different city, topographically and in other regards, than Pittsburgh, so the expansion is very interesting. “Using public roads as your laboratory carries responsibilities”.

“What this company has done is start operating illegally and push for permission later”.