Seeking to address one of the biggest concerns about its driverless vehicle technology, autonomous vehicle company Cruise announced that internal software updates have improved how its fleet of robotaxis react to emergency vehicles on the streets of San Francisco.
According to Cruise, its cars now lower their speed by about 70% once they begin to hear a siren. They’ve also been reprogrammed to more quickly find a safe place to pull over if emergency vehicles are heading in their direction, according to the company, and can better navigate around stopped emergency vehicles so they don’t block traffic. The vehicles are also now better equipped to recognize emergency scenes, according to the blog post.