Bad Week for Unoccupied Waymo Cars: One Hit in Fatal Collision, One Vandalized by Mob

For the first time in America, an empty self-driving car has been involved in a fatal collision. But it was 'hit from behind by a speeding car that was going about 98 miles per hour,' a local news site reports, citing comments from Waymo. ('Two other victims were taken to the hospital with life-threatening injuries. A dog also died in the crash, according to the San Francisco Fire Department.')

Waymo's self-driving car 'is not being blamed,' notes NBC Bay Area. Instead the Waymo car was one of six vehicles 'struck when a fast-moving vehicle slammed into a line of cars stopped at a traffic light...'

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration requires self-driving car companies, like Waymo, to report each time their vehicles are involved in an accident, regardless of whether the autonomous vehicle was at fault. According to NHTSA, which began collecting such data in July 2021, Waymo's driverless vehicles have been involved in about 30 different collisions resulting in some type of injury. Waymo, however, has noted that nearly all those crashes, like Sunday's collision, were the fault of other cars driven by humans. While NHTSA's crash data doesn't note whether self-driving vehicles may have been to blame, Waymo has previously noted that it only expects to pay out insurance liability claims for two previous collisions involving its driverless vehicles that resulted in injuries.

In December, Waymo touted the findings of its latest safety analysis, which determined its fleet of driverless cars continue to outperform human drivers across major safety metrics. The report, authored by Waymo and its partners at the Swiss Reinsurance Company, reviewed insurance claim data to explore how often human drivers and autonomous vehicles are found to be liable in car collisions. According to the study, Waymo's self-driving vehicles faced about 90% fewer insurance claims relating to property damage and bodily injuries compared to human drivers... The company's fleet of autonomous vehicles have traveled more than 33 million miles and have provided more than five million rides across San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Austin...

In California, there are more than 30 companies currently permitted by the DMV to test driverless cars on the open road. While most are still required to have safety drivers sitting in the front seat who can take over when needed, Waymo remains the only fleet of robotaxis in California to move past the state's testing phase to, now, regularly offer paid rides to passengers.

Their article adds that while Sunday's collision marks the first fatal crash involving a driverless car, 'it was nearly seven years ago when another autonomous vehicle was involved in a deadly collision with a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona, though that self-driving car had a human safety driver behind the wheel. The accident, which occurred in March 2018, involved an autonomous car from Uber, which sold off its self-driving division two years later to a competitor.'

In other news, an unoccupied Waymo vehicle was attacked by a mob in Los Angeles last night, according to local news reports. 'Video footage of the incident appears to show the vehicle being stripped of its door, windows shattered, and its Jaguar emblems removed. The license plate was also damaged, and the extent of the vandalism required the vehicle to be towed from the scene.'
The Los Angeles Times reminds its readers that 'Last year, a crowd in San Francisco's Chinatown surrounded a Waymo car, vandalized it and then set it ablaze...'

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