San Antonio News – ‘Just another day’: Waymo caught driving wrong way on I-35 frontage road
What a way to start a Monday morning.
Editors note: HOW???
See original article by Kelsey Thompson at the San Antonio News
An Austinite’s morning commute took an interesting turn on Monday, December 15, as they came face to face with a Waymo — on a one-way road.
Reddit user @holafromaustin shared footage his wife captured of a driverless Waymo vehicle driving in the opposite direction on the Interstate 35 frontage road in downtown Austin. The driving gaffe happened near the Valero gas station at 900 N. I-35, near the intersection of the frontage road and East Ninth Street.
“Just another day in Austin,” @holafromaustin captioned the post, which garnered more than 1,300 up-votes and over 200 comments.
“I guess robots malfunction during the holiday season the same way human brains do,” @COSM1CWARR1OR commented, while @PrudentLand6679 speculated: “If I hit that thing could I sue & get rich? Asking for a friend of course.”
A Waymo spokesperson shared the following statement regarding the incident: “Safety is our highest priority at Waymo, both for people who choose to ride with us and with whom we share the streets. We take situations like this seriously and are committed to improving road safety through our ongoing learnings and experience.”
Both the Austin Police Department and the Austin Transportation and Public Works Department confirmed they hadn’t fielded any reports from this specific incident. The City of Austin tracks the number of incidents involving driverless vehicles via its autonomous vehicles dashboard.
That dashboard features 118 reported incidents involving Waymo vehicles this year, with 43 of those run-ins classified as safety concerns. City officials have also documented 20 reports of blocking traffic, 20 instances where Waymos drove past a school bus with its stop sign activated, 17 reported nuisances, 10 incidents where Waymos ignored APD’s direction, five near misses and three collisions.
In early December, Waymo received its 20th citation from Austin ISD officials for its self-driving cars illegally passing stopped school buses. That citation followed a previous software update implemented by Waymo, that company officials had said would fix the safety concern. District officials met with Waymo representatives in early December, and an Austin ISD spokesperson told MySA Waymo leaders disagreed with the district’s risk assessments and refused to cease operations.
Regarding the Austin citations, a Waymo spokesperson told MySA in a statement that, “improving road safety is our top priority at Waymo and we’re deeply invested in safe interaction with school buses. We swiftly implemented software updates to address this and will continue to rapidly improve.”
See original article by Kelsey Thompson at the San Antonio News
