The fire truck had lights and sirens on according to updated articles, so the Cruise vehicle would be at fault

Not necessarily. Having sirens and lights flashing doesn't mean that the emergency vehicle can do whatever they like. They need to navigate red lights safely.

So the cruise vehicle could have failed to handle the situation as well as a human driver, but it's also possible that the emergency vehicle wasn't driving carefully enough.

> So the cruise vehicle could have failed to handle the situation as well as a human driver

Why did you say "could have" instead of "did"? Are there circumstances in which it is acceptable (and/or legal in the USA) for a car, autonomous or manned, to drive directly into the path of an emergency vehicle giving warning?

> Are there circumstances in which it is acceptable (and/or legal in the USA) for a car, autonomous or manned, to drive directly into the path of an emergency vehicle giving warning?

Did the autonomous vehicle move into the path of the emergency vehicle? Did it simply stop and fail to clear the intersection? I can't find any video or explanation of the incident so I think "could have" is the correct grammer.

If the emergency vehicle driver drove into the car on purpose or was driving drunk or something, I'd think we probably would have heard about it by now? It's hard to imagine that they'd just drive into a car they had plenty of time to react to, and no witnesses would come forward, and Cruise wouldn't publicly release their car's footage of the incident, the driver in the emergency vehicle wouldn't be fired, etc.

I wrote in this way because I do not know which was the case. I was not there, and have not seen any footage. The article is also fairly vague about what happened.

What information do you have that makes you so sure of how the situation played out?

A dashcam video from the firetruck would be worth thousands statements by spokespeople.

I think there is no "car that hit it", it's the other way around - from the article:

A spokesperson for the San Francisco Fire Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the city emergency vehicle that struck the Cruise car.

So the emergency vehicle drove into the Cruise car. AFAIK even if the emergency vehicle has lights and sirens on, that doesn't necessarily give it the right to drive into other cars.

Nobody has the right to just drive into other cars.

Still, society has largely agreed that there are exceptions.

For example, if you suddenly swerve in front of a another car and do a "brake check" and successfully cause the car behind you to drive into yours, that is considered a crime in most parts of the world. I don't know how accident liability disputes work in other countries, but in the USA at least, the liability might actually be yours, partially or even fully, despite that the rear driver in a collision is normally considered liable by default. It doesn't mean they had the right to drive into you. It's kind of like their lack of such a right is waived because you prevented them from not exercising it.

Similarly, if you ignore an emergency vehicle's ample warning that it's approaching, and you choose to suddenly drive into its path, its driver doesn't have the right to drive into you, but their driving into you is not a right they chose to exercise.

The same is true even for non-emergency vehicles. If another car has a green light, and you suddenly run a red light and drive in front of them and they drive into you, the liability might be yours, even though their right-of-way did not give them the right to do that.