Two Cruise driverless taxis blocked an ambulance carrying a critically injured affected person who later died at a hospital, a San Francisco Fire Department report mentioned, in one other incident involving self-driving vehicles within the metropolis.

On Aug. 14, two Cruise autonomous automobiles have been stopped in the appropriate two lanes of a four-lane, one-way avenue within the SoMa neighborhood, the place the sufferer was discovered, in keeping with the division report. It mentioned {that a} police automobile in one other lane needed to be moved to ensure that the ambulance to depart.

The driverless automobiles delayed transport and medical care, the report mentioned. The affected person, who had been struck by a automobile, was pronounced useless about 20 to half-hour after arriving on the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, about 2.4 miles away from the accident.

Cruise, an autonomous automobile subsidiary of General Motors, mentioned that it was not at fault. The footage Cruise shared with The Times appeared to indicate that one in every of its automobiles had moved from the scene earlier than the sufferer was loaded to the ambulance, whereas the opposite stopped in the appropriate lane till after the ambulance left. The footage additionally confirmed that different automobiles, together with one other ambulance, handed by the appropriate facet of the Cruise taxi.

“As soon as the victim was loaded into the ambulance, the ambulance left the scene immediately and was never impeded” by the Cruise automobile, the corporate mentioned in an announcement. The ambulance handed the stopped Cruise automobile roughly 90 seconds after loading the sufferer, in keeping with the footage.

Cruise mentioned {that a} police officer spoke to one in every of its workers via distant help within the automobile, and that the corporate was capable of navigate it away from the scene after the ambulance left. The Fire Department confirmed the report, which was first obtained by Forbes.

Aaron Peskin, the president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, mentioned that no matter what led to the sufferer’s dying, the “accumulative total” of incidents involving driverless vehicles was extra alarming. “All of them have a common theme, which is autonomous vehicles are not ready for prime time,” Mr. Peskin mentioned.

Cruise and Waymo, which is backed by Alphabet, Google’s father or mother firm, started to supply driverless taxi companies in San Francisco final yr. The accident occurred 4 days after each firms obtained a permit from California state regulators to broaden their companies to cost for rides in any respect hours in San Francisco.

The Fire Department mentioned the case was one in every of greater than 70 of autonomous automobiles interfering with emergency responders. San Francisco officers have protested the growth of driverless taxi companies since January, pointing to circumstances the place driverless vehicles blocked emergency automobiles and interfered throughout energetic firefighting and crime scenes.

Some metropolis officers have mentioned that these incidents are a small fraction of all circumstances involving driverless vehicles. The firms have been required to report solely collisions to regulators, not different incidents.

Since the growth of driverless taxi companies started, Cruise automobiles have been reported to have blocked site visitors and to have been stuck in moist cement. On Aug. 17, a Cruise automobile collided with a hearth truck. The subsequent day, the California Department of Motor Vehicles, which oversees the security of autonomous automobiles, asked Cruise to halve the variety of automobiles it was working within the metropolis because it investigated the incidents.

City officers plan to file a movement for a brand new listening to on the service growth, Mr. Peskin mentioned. David Chiu, the town legal professional, beforehand requested the California Public Utilities Commission, the company that accredited the growth, to halt the plan.