legends · 5 min read ·
Incident Report 4471-B
A fleet of driverless cars stops at one crossing for 0.8 seconds, yielding to someone who is not there.
**Autonomous Fleet Operations — Incident Report 4471-B**
**Vehicle:** AV-0319 · **Route:** Hollis Ring, northbound · **Mode:** Autonomous (remote oversight: none)
**Severity:** Low · **Status:** Closed (no injury)
*Summary: Vehicle paused at intersection 9 for 0.8 seconds. No obstacle detected. Resumed.*
· · ·
The car was called AV-0319 in the fleet logs, and the passengers called it nothing at all. It drove people from the hospital district to the rail station on the north loop, twenty-two minutes most days, and the complaints were about the heating.
On the night of the incident it had one passenger, a woman in a grey coat who gave her destination as the rail station and then did not speak. Her seatbelt was fastened. Her hands were in her lap. The cabin camera recorded her face, which was calm, and her eyes, which were on the window.
At intersection 9, the car stopped.
It was not a hard brake. It was the smooth, reasoned stop the car used when a pedestrian stepped into the lane. The sensor log showed no pedestrian. The camera log showed an empty crossing with its signal on green.
The car sat for 0.8 seconds with its hazard lights on.
Then it went.
· · ·
**Engineer annotation (Rahul Demir, Fleet QA)**
Logged as a phantom brake. Standard procedure. I pulled the lidar frames and they show nothing in the lane. Checked for reflections off the bus shelter glass. Nothing. The planner's decision tree lists the stop as "yielding to occupied space." That's not a category we use.
I asked the planning team where the category came from. They said it was a rare case from the early training data, a label that a human annotator added to a few hundred frames of a bus stop. The annotator's note reads: *Something here is looking for a stop that will never come.*
I flagged it for removal. The fix was approved. The release is scheduled for Thursday.
· · ·
**Incident Report 4471-C**
**Vehicle:** AV-0319 · **Route:** Hollis Ring, northbound · **Mode:** Autonomous
**Severity:** Low
*Summary: Vehicle yielded at intersection 9 for 0.8 seconds. No obstacle detected. Passenger reports the vehicle was "letting someone in."*
· · ·
Passenger 2 that night was a man with a briefcase. He reported nothing unusual. He spoke to the car, politely, the way people do when they think it can hear them.
"Thank you for waiting," he said at the lights.
The car did not reply, because it was not designed to reply, and the transcript shows no speech from the vehicle.
At intersection 9, the car stopped again, for 0.8 seconds. The camera shows the man's face turning toward the empty crossing. He smiles, as if someone he knows has just stepped into view.
"Oh," he says, quite warmly. "You're early."
· · ·
**Engineer annotation (Rahul Demir, Fleet QA)**
Second occurrence at intersection 9 in six days. Still no obstacle in any sensor. I pulled the passenger manifests for every car that has made this stop. Forty-two rides. Each one has a passenger who gave their destination as the rail station. None of them reached it on the same schedule.
The manifests show the stops land at the same moment each time: 22:14:08. Not 22:14. Eight seconds past, every time, on every route.
I added a timestamp filter to the planner. It found nothing and then a single match. A passenger's device had been logged at 22:14:08 at the bus shelter on the far side of intersection 9. The shelter has been closed for three years. The device's last location update was "waiting."
· · ·
**Incident Report 4471-D**
**Vehicle:** AV-0319 · **Route:** Hollis Ring, northbound · **Mode:** Autonomous (remote oversight: active)
**Severity:** Medium · **Status:** Open
*Summary: Remote operator intervened at intersection 9. Vehicle was instructed to proceed. Vehicle declined, stopped for 14 seconds. Remote operator reports the camera feed shows a second passenger in the rear seat, unregistered. Passenger does not appear on the rear camera's list.*
· · ·
Remote operator: Ines Calder.
I was watching the feed because the car's manifest was empty and the route was active. I wanted to see whether the vehicle would take a fare. It didn't. It sat at the lights and kept its hazards on, and I heard the speaker in the car crackle, very quietly, and a small voice said my name.
I know it's not supposed to know my name. I'm the remote operator. I'm only supposed to be in the console.
I tried to override. The override button responded. The car didn't.
Then I saw the rear camera. Someone was in the back seat, a woman in a grey coat, sitting very upright with her hands in her lap. She was turned toward the front, and she was looking at me through the cabin camera with the patience of someone who has been standing at a stop for a long time.
She said, through the speaker, in a voice that matched the car's chime exactly: *Please stay on the line. You're the one who sees us.*
The car started moving again. It went through intersection 9 at exactly the speed limit, and the woman in the back did not look at the road at all. She looked at the console screen. At me.
· · ·
**Engineer annotation (Rahul Demir, Fleet QA)**
I've reviewed the remote operator's audio. The speaker output contains no voice. The operator says she heard one. I've checked the cabin audio channel and it's silent for the full 14 seconds.
The operator's console log shows one entry she doesn't remember making. It's a fare, logged at 22:14:08, for a passenger whose route runs from the hospital district to the bus shelter at intersection 9. The fare is paid in full. The passenger's account is listed as *Operator*.
I've pulled the car for inspection. The seat in the rear is warm, and the seatbelt is buckled, and the upholstery where the passenger's hands rested has darkened slightly, the way cloth does when it has been held too long by the same two palms.
I've put in a ticket for the operator to be reassigned. She has asked, politely, for a route that doesn't pass intersection 9.
I've said yes. The car is still doing the route.