Nope, cruise car was in the other lane turning left. It turned into my lane just after I passed the car turning left and the cruise car made a sudden stop in the wrong (my) lane. Had it continued, it would've collided with my rear wheel - so I'm like 75% sure I wouldn't have been at fault.
So, by the sounds of things, everything worked as designed. In many similar situations with a human behind the wheel, that would have been a collision.
Based on personal experience (as a firefighter/paramedic), I wouldn't be surprised if a not-insignificant percentage of collisions (both car/car and car/bike) in SF are caused by that very scenario.
Personally, that sounds like an anecdote very much in favor of automated cars.
You're completely off base here. I'd say I do this 10-15 times a day. So ~100 times a week, and there is never an issue. I am infrequently the first car to do it. I put it in quotes because it is a very common practice in SF. You would have to wait through every light twice to get anywhere in the Mission if you didn't do this. It's mostly single lane with no turn light. I noted that it was odd because I very rarely have problems doing this.