A motorcyclist who was involved in a crash with a General Motors personal car in San Francisco has settled his lawsuit with the automaker, court records show. The distribution was announced in a court filing week and eat reported by Jalopnik on friday
The accident happened last December. Oscar Nilsson rides his motorcycle along a three-way, one-way street in San Francisco’s Lower Haight neighborhood. A self-driving car from Cruise, GM’s autonomous car division, is ahead of you.
Cruise’s car was in the center lane and saw an opening between two cars in the left lane. Cruise’s car began to roll to the left, but as it did so the gap in the left lane began to close. Cruise vehicle aborted the lane change and returned to the center lane.
Unfortunately, Nilsson had already crashed his motorcycle into a lot near Cruise’s vehicle. So, when Cruise’s car made a U-turn and returned to the center lane, it hit Nilsson and hit his motorcycle.
GM said Cruise’s car was traveling at 12 miles per hour, while Nilsson’s was going 17 miles per hour.
Nilsson was able to walk away from the crash, but in a January snake he said he suffered “injuries to his neck and shoulder that will require long-term treatment” and was forced to take sick leave from his job.
GM and Nilsson naturally disagreed about who was to blame for the crash. Nilsson said he waited for Cruise’s car to clear the road before pulling up next to him. Then, Nilsson said, Cruise’s car “suddenly backed up” into Nilsson’s path. GM, in contrast, said that Nilsson had a “road-split between two cars in the center and right lanes” and that he merged into the car’s lane “before it was safe to do so.”
But instead of letting the courts settle this, the parties have reached a settlement. The court filing announcing the decision did not explain its terms.
Cruise has made the decision to test its cars in San Francisco, one of the country’s toughest driving areas. Inside an October post, Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt described this as “challenging but important.” He argues that driving in San Francisco allows his cars to experience unusual and challenging events more often than in more sedate and rural areas like Silicon Valley and Southeast Phoenix — the main areas where Waymo tests cars. soak.
This approach helped the Cruise team identify flaws in its technology quickly and ultimately get it to market sooner. And given how many people die in cars driven by humans every year, that could save lives in the long run.