I almost get run over by an autonomous car when crossing a street.

[Watts_Up]

I almost get run over by an autonomous car when crossing a street.
I was crossing a street at a ‘T’ intersection at around 7:30 pm (still summer time) so it started to be a little bit dark.
I am very familiar with this location, so before crossing this street, I always check carefully if there was any car coming.
Since the street was empty, I started to cross the street.
There are no marked pedestrian crossing but there is a school just at this corner.

While I was already engaged, I noticed a car stopping at the edge of the intersection.
After a short stop, the car suddenly made a left turn toward my location.
I didn’t see the car slowing down or making any direction change.
So I immediately started to run to avoid getting hit.

The car passed behind me and I noticed that this car had a big white box on the roof.
It was a Chevy Bolt, so I assume it was an autonomous GM Cruise doing some testing in the area.
The car didn't slow down or made any direction change, and quickly moved away.
It seems that the car's autonomous driving, if it was engaged, or a driver if there was one, even noticed my presence,

This incident occurred too fast so I wasn't able to take any picture, but here is a Google Street view of the location.
I contacted Cruise by e-mail and they told me that they recorded my complaint, but no news since, this was about one week ago.

I didn’t tested FSD with my Tesla at this particular location, but it seems that pedestrians and bicycles are always detected
from what I noticed as often FSD slows down, even sometime brutally, when a pedestrian get detected.

 

[LoudMusic]

Man that's a sketchy place for pedestrians.

The car should have seen you though - human or computer driving.

 

[Dewg]

Cruise is pretty easy to identify, so if it was just a Bolt with a box on top, it may have been a mapping car (like Google Street View). However, those have drivers and are not autonomous - did you note if there was a driver in the car, or was it empty?

 

[Watts_Up]

Cruise is pretty easy to identify, so if it was just a Bolt with a box on top, it may have been a mapping car (like Google Street View). However, those have drivers and are not autonomous - did you note if there was a driver in the car, or was it empty?

It started to be a little bit dark, so the only thing that I really noticed was those two high beam lights coming very fast in my direction.
I could not see if there was a driver or not inside the car, I was only able to identify the car from the rear.
About Google Street View cars, those have a mast and a camera on the top, but that was not the case.

I am very familiar with this location because this where I park my car to use a public charger when I go to the gym.
I noticed the car at the stop sign but I was already engaged and crossing the street.

I have been in a similar situation were a car was making a left turn while I was crossing the street.
In this case, there has never been any issues as the driver waited at the stop sign, or started moving very slowly,
until I finished crossing the street, something that seems very natural to do when there is a pedestrian crossing a street.
This was not a major artery where cars are zooming, its only a small street near a mall with very low traffic.

 

[EVRider-FL]

It started to be a little bit dark, so the only thing that I really noticed was those two high beam lights coming very fast in my direction.
I could not see if there was a driver or not inside the car, I was only able to identify the car from the rear.
About Google Street View cars, those have a mast and a camera on the top, but that was not the case.

So you don’t really know if it was a driverless car, despite your thread title.

 

[zoomer0056]

There are no marked pedestrian crossing but there is a school just at this corner.

That's strange. There's a school but no pedestrian crossing lines?

 

[Supcom]

Maybe Cruise made the mistake of naming one of their cars Christine?

 

[Need]

Is that a Stop sign or Yield sign? Looks like Yield is on the road, so maybe it is really a Yield sign? As a human driver, if it is a stop sign, I would stop there and wait for the person to cross first (if I see the person). If it is dark enough that auto headlight is on, I may not see the person crossing as my headlights would be pointing straight not 90 degrees to the left. Now, if it is a Yield sign, I will probably go ahead and make the turn if there is no car in the way. Then if I see the person, I will stop there. Not sure what autonomous car would do.

 

[Watts_Up]

That's strange. There's a school but no pedestrian crossing lines?

In this area, it seems that there are only pedestrian crossing lines when there is a four lanes road, not in the case of two lanes road.

However, there are school speed signs before and after the intersection.

 

[Watts_Up]

So you don’t really know if it was a driverless car, despite your thread title.

I could be wrong but honestly this was my impression because I felt that a driver would have slow down or changed direction,
and also because the car accelerated very fast, something that I noticed when using FSD after making a 90 degree turn.

 

[JulienW]

Are you in Phoenix or Austin?