‘Welcome to the future’: Driverless car flees police in San Francisco

Baffled police officers in San Francisco were captured on film trying to pull over a car only to find it had no driver.

The Cruise self-driving car was then seen appearing to flee the traffic stop as the confused officer, who had approached the empty driver’s side, tried to return to his cruiser.

The self-driving car later pulled over at a “safer location” according to Cruise.

Cruise said the car was pulled over because of “human error” which meant there were no lights on the car, which has a programmed maximum speed of 30mph.

“Ain’t nobody in it – this is crazy,” a surprised passer-by says in the video.

The viral video, viewed 2.4million times, prompted several “Welcome to the future” and “Robots are rebelling” jokes with some comparing the attempted police stop to something out of Sci-Fi movie Total Recall.

A Cruise spokesperson clarified the encounter on Twitter, saying: “Our AV yielded to the police vehicle, then pulled over to the nearest safe location for the traffic stop, as intended. An officer contacted Cruise personnel and no citation was issued.

“We work closely with the SFPD on how to interact with our vehicles, including a dedicated phone number for them to call in situations like this.”

A Cruise spokeswoman, Tiffany Testo, told the Guardian the vehicle “did not have its headlights on because of a human error, which was the reason the SFPD approached it, and we have fixed the issue that led to this”