Federal regulators have opened a preliminary investigation into whether or not Cruise autonomous vehicles exercised “applicable warning” in and round pedestrians, the Nationwide Freeway Site visitors Security Administration wrote in a submitting.

The NHTSA probe was prompted by two experiences involving pedestrian accidents and Cruise autos in latest months. The company additionally cited two different incidents it recognized by “movies posted to public web sites,” based on the submitting. NHTSA opened the probe into Cruise, a subsidiary of Common Motors, on Monday.

One incident on Oct. 2 concerned a scenario the place a pedestrian was thrown by one other car into the trail of a driverless Cruise car. That incident matches the small print of a hit-and-run crash in San Francisco, which resulted in a single pedestrian being transported to the hospital.

On the time of the incident, the corporate mentioned its autonomous car braked “aggressively” and that it was “actively working” with San Francisco police to establish the hit-and-run driver. Cruise mentioned it had spoken with the NHTSA in regards to the Oct. 2 incident and supplied it with video footage, including that the regulator had not raised additional questions.

The opposite incident occurred in August. Based on the incident report, a Cruise autonomous car transferring at a velocity of about 1.4 miles per hour struck a pedestrian who stepped right into a crosswalk after the stoplight had turned inexperienced, and the car was allowed to proceed, based on the incident report. The pedestrian was then transported by emergency medical providers. The corporate additionally mentioned the pedestrian was transported after experiencing knee ache.

Cruise mentioned the NHTSA had not spoken with the corporate in regards to the August incident or the 2 incidents apparently posted on social media.

“Cruise’s security file over 5 million miles continues to outperform comparable human drivers at a time when pedestrian accidents and deaths are at an all-time excessive,” Cruise spokesperson Hannah Lindow mentioned in an announcement to CNBC. “Cruise communicates commonly with NHTSA and has persistently cooperated with every of NHTSA’s requests for data — whether or not related to an investigation or not — and we plan to proceed doing so.”

The corporate, alongside Alphabet subsidiary Waymo, has been deploying its autos throughout San Francisco for months. Critics of the autonomous driving rollout, together with some San Francisco emergency responders, have cited incidents the place driverless autos have obstructed emergency autos.

Proponents have argued that driverless autos are safer than human-driven ones. Different corporations, together with some based mostly in China, are additionally testing driverless autos on San Francisco streets.

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