On August 11, a group autonomous taxi operating in San Francisco (United States) stopped for no apparent reason in the North Beach area, giving rise to a big traffic jam. Other vehicles on the road were unable to continue their journey, causing chaos that Friday evening in one of the busiest areas of the city.

Need that engineer intervention from the Cruise company, a subsidiary of General Motors, which offers this robotaxis service in the city of California for regain control of the vehicle. According to company sources, the problem is caused by cellular connectivity.

Another vehicle from the same company ended up stuck in fresh cement at a construction site, because sensors and other systems do not read construction signals properly. Police have also encountered these vehicles, which in some cases do not stop when requested.

The machine takes control

Although technology helps global progress, there are times when machines rebel against humans, causing panic in those who had to suffer due to the artifact’s one-sided decision making. This is what happened to Brian Morrison, 53, who said this his new vehicle started to drive on its own and didn’t let him regain control for several excruciating minutes.

This Scot, living in Glasgow, who has mobility issues, considers himself the proud owner of a 100% electric MG ZS. The Chinese model, which has the MG Pilot system, delivers partially automatic driving function.

Last week, when he came home from work, chaos broke out. The car itself suddenly took control of the driving. The climax and what made the driver panic was that the brakes stopped working.

‘Kidnapped’ by his own car

From there, Brian Morrison experienced some sad moments. The vehicle maintains a constant speed of 50 km/h. preventing the driver from carrying out any operations and even leaving the car. Morrison himself admitted that he was very lucky, because the traffic he was passing through was not heavy.

The trouble started when he realized, after reaching a roundabout, that the vehicle does not slow down. “I managed to get around the roundabout at around 50km/h, so I assumed it would stop without me speeding up, but it didn’t. Plus, I have mobility problems, so I can’t even jump. “I’m really stuck,” account.

“It may not seem like a very fast speed, but when you have no control of the vehicle and you are completely trapped inside, “This is one of the scariest situations you can be in.” he confirmed.

Emergency services

Seeing that the situation was out of control and that he was heading towards an area with many traffic lights, several roundabouts, and a high pedestrian density, he decided to call emergency services. They realized that it was They are experiencing this problem for the first time and don’t know how to solve it. It was the police and some engineers who controlled the situation over the phone. Even though nothing they asked him to do worked.

Starting from throwing the electronic key out the window at one of the Police cars (and if it is taken away, the vehicle will stop) to trying to restart the car. MG ZS electric pressing the power button three times: nothing works.

While still locked with emergency services on the phone, Three patrol cars arrived to make way for him.: one stood in front of him, another behind him, and the third remained beside him.

Finally the police decided that the best maneuver was to arrest Brian crashed into the back of his van before entering more urban areas. In this way, they managed to stop the car and delete the driver, a police officer who takes over the wheel. Even so, the vehicle wanted to keep going. The van was the only thing stopping him.

Three hours later

It is the RAC (British roadside assistance agency) service that does just that Three hours later he managed to control the car.. After connecting the diagnostic machine, they detected several failures in various parameters of the electric car.

Meanwhile, the insurance company is also investigating the incident to prepare a report. Neither they nor authorities have been in touch European MG cars to gather all possible information about what happened.