The U.S. government's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has initiated an investigation into crashes involving Waymo's self-driving vehicles. The agency received 22 reports of Waymo vehicles being involved in crashes or potential traffic law violations, prompting the probe.
This recent investigation is part of a series of inquiries by the agency into automated driving systems. In the case of Waymo, formerly known as Google's self-driving vehicle unit, the NHTSA has documented 17 crashes and five reports of traffic law violations. Fortunately, no injuries were reported in any of these incidents.
The crashes involving Waymo vehicles primarily involved collisions with stationary objects like gates, chains, or parked vehicles. Some of these incidents occurred after the Waymo driving system exhibited unexpected behavior near traffic control devices.
Waymo, based in Mountain View, California, has been operating autonomous taxis without human safety drivers in Arizona and California. The NHTSA plans to investigate the 22 reported incidents involving Waymo's fifth-generation driving system, as well as similar scenarios, to identify any common factors contributing to these incidents.
The agency noted that Waymo's automated driving system was active during each incident, with some cases involving a human driver disengaging the system just before an accident occurred. The investigation will focus on evaluating the system's performance in detecting and responding to traffic control devices, as well as its ability to avoid collisions with stationary and semi-stationary objects and vehicles.
