San Francisco will suspend Waymo and Cruise self-driving taxi services due to traffic jams

CTOnews.com, August 18 (Xinhua)-- General Motors' Cruise and Alphabet's Waymo have both deployed a large number of self-driving cars in San Francisco to test the technology. CTOnews.com earlier reported that San Francisco residents encountered a traffic jam caused by Cruise self-driving cars over the weekend, a day after California regulators approved driverless taxi companies to operate 24 hours a day.

Qiu Xinfu, prosecutor of San Francisco, California, proposed to the California Public Utilities Commission yesterday to suspend the self-driving taxis of Waymo and Cruise from providing round-the-clock commercial services in San Francisco, according to a video posted by users of the ▲ Touyuan X platform.

In the days after San Francisco gave the green light to Waymo and Cruise's self-driving taxi service, at least 10 self-driving cars caused traffic jams, one of which even crashed directly into unhardened concrete in the road construction zone, foreign media TechCrunch reported.

It is reported that San Francisco prosecutor Qiu Xinfu wrote in the letter: "San Francisco will be seriously negatively affected by the 'self-driving car business expansion', and the full opening of self-driving services will bring more potential harm to San Francisco."

A Waymo spokesman said the company supported the California Public Utilities Commission's decision. "We will closely monitor this development, and we will continue to work constructively with San Francisco to provide safe and convenient transportation services for San Francisco residents," the spokesman said.

However, a spokesman for Cruise expressed dissatisfaction, saying: "it is a pity that San Francisco's' use of public resources' has restricted tens of thousands of San Francisco residents from using a technology with a 'good safety record'."