Gary Zhou 
Police were confused recently as they pulled over an autonomous vehicle in a viral TikTok video that popped across my feed. I’m an avid user of the app and definitely got my laugh that night when I saw the video. The video was initially shared by user @SineadBovell — she used TikTok’s text features to silently narrate the video.
She noted that the autonomous vehicle realized that it was being pulled over and stopped. You can hear the police officers saying, “Ain’t nobody in it,” and “This is crazy” in the video. However, the story doesn’t end here. As the officer turned away, the autonomous vehicle seemed to flee the scene.
Sinead pointed out that it actually recognized that it was in a dangerous position, so moved to a safer one. The autonomous vehicle pulled over and turned on the hazards, which allowed the police officer to move behind it and out of the middle of the street. Her video also caught the reactions of a few bystanders. They seemed just as freaked out as the police were.
ArsTechnica has a bit more information about the video and noted that its original source came from Instagram. The article noted that the vehicle was one of Cruise’s autonomous Chevrolet Bolt EVs, and the likely reason it was pulled over was due to the vehicle’s headlights not being on even though it was nighttime. Cruise stated that the car wasn’t trying to flee the police, as it appears in the video, but was trying to pull over to a safer location for the actual traffic stop.
The company also said that it solved whatever caused the vehicle to drive without its headlights at night. Fortunately for Cruise, the police officers didn’t issue a ticket. Had this been a Tesla, I’m sure we’d have seen headlines about killer robotaxis and how evil Elon Musk is.
