Gulf Today/ Agencies

San Francisco police recently faced an unprecedented problem when a member of their staff stopped a self-driving car that was driving at night with the lights off and no one inside.

A video recording of the incident, taken by a passer-by, spread through social networks, prompting the cruise company, which owns the vehicle, to comment on Twitter to clarify what happened.

A Cruise spokeswoman said recently, in a comment on the video posted by a journalist, "Our autonomous vehicle gave way to a police car, and then stopped at the nearest safe point after the signal, as expected." She added, "A policeman called Cruise without writing any citation report."

The video clip shows a policeman walking to the window of the car at the driver's seat, amid laughter from passersby, one of them said, "No one is inside! This is madness". The self-driving car will then automatically move to the other side after the green signal.

A police spokesman said that its members "contacted the operators of the autonomous vehicle (...) the maintenance team took control of the vehicle."

Cruise confirmed the incident, explaining that the lights were turned off due to human error.

Since its founding in 2013, Cruise has developed software that allows vehicles to run completely autonomously. The American company "General Motors" owns the majority of Cruise stakes, estimated at more than $30 billion, thanks to investments from "Microsoft", "Honda" and "Walmart" in particular.

The company has passed a major milestone by allowing individuals, since early February, to book free rides on the streets of San Francisco in its self-driving vehicles.

Residents of the California city frequently encounter taxi bots from Google's autonomous car company Waymo. These camera-equipped vehicles transport public passengers to where they want them, with a driver in the vehicle who does not touch the steering wheel or the pedals.