If you like riding a bike around San Francisco, you may want to be on the lookout for a new menace: self-driving Uber cars.

The ride-hailing giant, who started testing its self-driving cars in its hometown last week has confessed that its technology has a “problem” with the way it crosses bike lanes. An Uber Technologies Inc. spokesman said in a statement to The Guardian that its engineers were working to fix a flaw in the programming “that advocates feared could have deadly consequences for cyclists.”

Problems with Uber’s self-driving cars were first flagged by the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, which released a warning about them based on reports from its members. They claimed that the vehicles, when in self-driving mode, were seen to make unsafe right-hook-style turns through bike lanes — that is, a turn across the path of a bike lane as opposed to merging into the bike lane itself before making a turn. The latter is required not only under local law, but as a way to avoid hitting cyclists in the bike lane itself.

The Cycle Coalition said in a blog post that they have been told that safety drivers in Uber’s autonomous vehicles have been instructed to disengage from self-driving mode when approaching right turns on a street with a bike lane and that engineers are working on the problem.

“It’s one of the biggest causes of collisions,” coalition spokesman Chris Cassidy told The Guardian. “The fact that they know there’s a dangerous flaw in the technology and persisted in a surprise launch shows a reckless disregard for the safety of people in our streets.”

At the same time, Uber is coming under fire by cyclist groups, it has failed to end its argument with the California Department of Motor Vehicles over whether it requires a license to undertake road testing of its autonomous vehicles. The San Francisco Business Times reported Tuesday that the company had agreed to a sit down with the DMV and the California Attorney General’s office Wednesday afternoon to discuss the situation. Uber claims it does not require a permit because there is a driver behind the wheel at all times.

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