Author: Alex Davies / Source: WIRED
A self-driving Waymo minivan crashed in Chandler, Arizona, this afternoon, resurrecting tough questions about the safety of autonomous technology and ripping the barely-crusted scab off the technology’s reputation, which was badly wounded when an Uber self-driving car hit and killed a pedestrian in the same state just seven weeks ago.
Chandler police report only minor injuries. According to a police statement, a Honda sedan traveling eastbound through an intersection swerved into the Waymo Chrysler Pacifica’s westbound lane to avoid hitting another car traveling north.
(It’s unclear at this time who had the light and who is at fault.) The Honda hit the Waymo vehicle on its side, injuring the female safety driver behind the wheel of the SUV. Police say the vehicle was in autonomous mode when the incident occurred and was not traveling above the 45 mph speed limit. Waymo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Photos from local news stations show the Waymo vehicle pushed up against the sidewalk, with extensive damage to its front left bumper and wheel. The Honda’s entire front has been smashed in, along with its front passenger door. Its airbags appear to have deployed.
Video footage from the Waymo car’s cameras will help determine what happened, but based on preliminary evidence, the police say Waymo was not at fault. “The vehicle was at the wrong place at the wrong time,” says Seth Tyler, a spokesperson for the Chandler Police Department. “Waymo and the driver of the vehicle won’t get cited for anything because she didn’t do anything wrong.” (Still, it’s early. In the hours after a self-driving Uber SUV killed Elaine Herzberg in nearby Tempe, police told reporters the crash may have been unavoidable. But video footage released a week later showed the opposite: The SUV’s safety driver was not looking at the road in…
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