After being hit by a car, pedestrian gets run over by an autonomous vehicle

An autonomous vehicle operated by Cruise AV ran over a pedestrian in San Francisco, a city in US, after the person was already hit by another car. The woman was rescued by authorities from under the self-driving vehicle and now faces multiple life-threatening injuries. The incident has raised concerns about the future of autonomous vehicles and how they will handle future incidents.

As per the authorities, a human-driven vehicle hit the pedestrian and sped away from the scene. This happened to push the person directly in front of an autonomous Cruise vehicle which then ran over the woman and came to a stop on top of her.

However, Cruise quickly released a statement pointing out how the car itself wasn't at fault for the initial contact with the victim. "The initial impact was severe and launched the pedestrian directly in front of the AV. The AV then braked aggressively to minimize the impact. The driver of the other vehicle fled the scene," it said.

A witness submitted a photo to local media showing the AV stopped on the leg of the woman as she lay beneath it. Firefighters communicated with Cruise to disable the vehicle and then lifted it off to rescue the woman. Even though the initial contact with the woman couldn't be avoided, the AV ended up parked on her legs. This shows that there's still room for improvement in the way the AV operates.

On the other hand, Cruise has said that it is cooperating with local law enforcement by providing footage from the crash and applicable data. It further said that it is plausible that there was no way to avoid the accident due to its unpredictable nature.