Announcing Cruise’s Emergency Responder Advisory Council

Emergency responders and law enforcement work within communities across our country, every day, combating the epidemic of injuries and fatalities on our roadways. They see up close the devastating harms of speeding and impaired, distracted, or drowsy driving. Playing a vital role in keeping communities safe, they confront the dangers of the road head-on, day in and day out.

Given their expertise, they have meaningful feedback on how autonomous vehicle companies, including Cruise, can improve our operations and interactions with emergency responders in the field. Cruise shares their mission to make roads and communities safer, and know we can and must take their experiences into account as we resume operations.

That’s why, today, we are launching the Cruise Emergency Responder Advisory Council. This gathering of experts will engage directly with Cruise’s internal teams – engineering, safety, operations and more – to help us strengthen and hone our understanding of their challenges and responsibilities, our ongoing autonomous vehicle product development, and incident and safety processes.

While Cruise autonomous vehicles are designed to follow the speed limit, and don’t get drunk, drowsy, or distracted, we know that emergency responders understandably have questions about how to interact with this novel technology on the road – and input that’s critical to thoughtfully and responsibly operating in the communities they know best.

As Cruise resumes manual and supervised operations in Phoenix, Houston and Dallas, we have engaged with emergency responders and law enforcement through in-person training sessions that have reached more than 600 responders. In these sessions, we also gather robust in-person feedback directly from these responders and their communities, both in our current operating markets and at the national level. 

Our goal as Cruise moves forward is to more deeply integrate emergency responders’ feedback across our work – from software and engineering, to our emergency responder and community engagement and other initiatives.

We’re excited and grateful to have leading organizations representing law enforcement and first responders participating in this first-in-industry council. While each will bring unique perspectives and approaches, they all share Cruise’s vision for a safer future on our roadways. 

Initial members include the following organizations:

• International Association of Fire Chiefs

• National Association of Women Law Enforcement Executives

• National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives

• National Sheriffs’ Association

• OnStar

• Texas Police Chiefs Association

We thank these inaugural members for continuing to serve their communities and lending their expertise to inform the development, testing, and deployment of autonomous vehicle fleets. We look forward to sharing learnings and outcomes as we move forward with this dedicated set of experts.