Driverless cars in Houston: Cruise slowly resumes autonomous vehicle operations in Bayou City

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — Remember those self-driving cruisers driving around Houston last year?

Although the General Motors-owned company has been shut down for months, it has just announced that it is slowly resuming operations in Houston.

It’s been a tumultuous few months for the company following an incident last October when a pedestrian was struck and dragged by one of the vehicles in San Francisco.

This woman was struck by another car before being placed in the path of the Cruise vehicle.

She survived, but the accident led to a series of events that resulted in the suspension of her activities throughout the country.

First, the state of California announced that Cruise could no longer operate.

Then the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration launched an ongoing investigation.

Finally, Cruise announced in November that it was removing all of its 950 cars from the road.

Pete Bigelow, technology editor at Automotive News, discussed the series of events with ABC13.

“This has been the big story for Cruise over the last few months,” Bigelow said. “Subsequently, their entire management team was replaced.”

Cars in Houston will have people behind the wheel for now, but a Cruise spokesperson said they hope to be driverless again in a few weeks.

What has changed since the San Francisco incident?

Cruise declined an interview with ABC13, but said in a statement that it hired an outside company to review the accident, updated its fleet software and consulted with third-party companies to improve overall performance.

Bigelow said they had likely resolved this particular accident, but the long-term implications of the changes were unknown.

“I definitely think they have addressed this particular aspect of their technology,” he said. “Beyond that, it remains to be seen what they have done from a technological standpoint to improve their overall operation.”

Bigelow said he would feel comfortable riding in a Cruise vehicle, but added he would have to think about it before putting someone like his child in a vehicle.

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