Plenty of articles have been written about collisions with driverless cars – but this one has a little twist. A pedestrian took aim at an autonomous GM Cruise in San Francisco, with the vehicle sustaining light damage.

The incident, according to a DMV incident report sheet, took place on January 2 at around 9:27pm. The police were not called to the incident.

“A Cruise autonomous vehicle, operating in autonomous mode, was involved in a collision while making a right hand turn from northbound Valencia Street onto 16th Street,” the description of the report explained. “The Cruise AV was stopped at a green light in between crosswalks of Valencia Street and 16th Street, waiting for pedestrians to cross.

“A different pedestrian from the southwest corner of Valencia and 16th ran across Valencia Street, against the ‘do not walk’ symbol, shouting, and struck the left side of the Cruise AV’s rear bumper and hatch with his entire body.

“There were no injuries but the Cruise AV sustained some damage to its right rear light.”

Put this one down, therefore, as something of a ‘man bites dog’ story. That said, it is something of a trend for driverless car manufacturers to abdicate responsibility if and when a collision has occurred.

Back in November, a driverless shuttle bus which was being tested in Las Vegas suffered a crash on its first day. In a statement, the City of Las Vegas explained: “The shuttle did what it was supposed to do, in that it’s [sic] sensors registered the truck and the shuttle stopped to avoid the accident. Unfortunately the delivery truck did not stop and grazed the front fender of the shuttle.

“Had the truck had the same sensing equipment that the shuttle has, the accident would have been avoided.”

You can read the full DMV claim form here.

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