California orders robo-taxi company to halve its fleet after multiple crashes

General Motors-owned company Cruise will reduce its fleet of autonomous taxis in San Francisco by half, after a string of crashes and near-misses. US ‘robo-taxi’ operator Cruise has been asked to temporarily halve the number of autonomous cars it operates in California by the state’s road regulators after multiple incidents involving the so-called ‘self-driving’ vehicles in less than a week. The first incident occurred when a Cruise robo-taxi – which was transporting a passenger – collided with a fire truck. Hours later, another Cruise autonomous car was legally driving through a green light when it was hit by another fire truck reportedly responding to an emergency call. Last week another Cruise autonomous vehicle was seen to have driven into wet concrete in northern San Francisco, as reported by Carscoops .