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Cruise Rival Waymo Under NHTSA Investigation Over 22 Traffic Incidents

Back in December 2023, GM Authority reported on an incident where two of Alphabet’s Waymo robotaxi units struck the same vehicle within a few minutes of each other. While the autonomous driving rival to GM’s Cruise has since released a recall to address these accidents, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHSTA) has now announced that Waymo is currently under investigation after more reports of Waymo-related crashes and traffic violations.

According to a report from Automotive News, the NHTSA has launched a probe into the self-driving subsidiary after receiving 22 reports of incidents where Waymo robotaxi units were involved in crashes with stationary objects, semi-stationary objects, collided with parked cars, or generally violated traffic safety laws.

It’s worth noting that initial evaluations have determined that Waymo’s AV system was either engaged during each accident or disengaged just moments before.

Photo of a Waymo robotaxi, which serves as a rival to GM's Cruise.

The U.S. automotive safety regulators opened the preliminary evaluation to determine how common these types of incidents are, and to assess the system’s “performance in detecting and responding to traffic control devices and in avoiding collisions with stationary and semi-stationary objects and vehicles.”

“NHTSA plays a very important role in road safety and we will continue to work with them as part of our mission to become the world’s most trusted driver,” a Waymo spokesperson claimed in a prepared statement.

Photo of Cruise rivals.

In other Waymo-related developments, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) recently approved the robotaxi company’s application to expand its fared robotaxi services to parts of the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas. Taking effect early March 2024, this approval was a quick reversal from the CPUC’s decision to suspend Alphabet’s request to expand operations just the month prior in February 2024.

In response, a number of entities submitted protests to this approval – including the City of South San Francisco, County of San Mateo, and the Los Angeles Department of Transportation – arguing that the general public has the right to provide testimony and submit evidence regarding the potential implications of Waymo’s approved expansion.

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As a typical Florida Man, Trey is a certified GM nutjob who's obsessed with anything and everything Corvette-related.

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Comments

  1. I’m sorry but I have to put my own two cents here. And I will probably get much hate for this but I don’t care as I truly believe in how I feel about this and thinking about it with an engineering background. This self-driving nonsense to me is a bigger waste of R&D money than anything else. This is money that would have been better spent in getting EV technology to a point where they are better than ICEs in every way (charging speed, range, battery longevity, cold weather performance, etc.). This fantasy world of all self-driving pods is never going to happen in our lifetime. I’d even wager it won’t happen for atleast another century. The biggest problem here is AIs cannot think outside the box which in many cases can save lives. There are many cases of accidents involving self-driving systems like Teslas Autopilot that could not account for an unpredictable scenario caused by human error. Because of this, you cannot have self-driving cars co-exist with unpredictable human behavior.

    The best and safest way to implement an all autonomous future is by removing the human element much like human access is not allowed on train tracks using Communications Based Train Control (basically autonomous trains). These systems have to be fully shut down and train control reverted to engineer control when construction occurs on the tracks. So what does this have to do with autonomous cars? Well the point I am making is that in order for autonomous cars to work in a fully safe manner, the human element needs to be removed entirely. That means major infrastructure upgrades to allow interconnectivity of cars to talk to eachother and restricted access of humans onto the roadways. Now we need barriers and ways to direct foot and bicycle traffic around the roadways.

    Now ask yourself this question. Today local governments won’t even spend money on fixing potholes, street lamps, decrepit bridges until they completely fail safety standards, completing road markings in backroads and residential areas, and widening overcrowded highways. Why should anyone expect them to shell out the billions required to implement these infrastructure changes? Yeah. For this reason, autonomous driving will be no more advanced than a fancy cruise control system that will still need human monitoring for the foreseeable future. It will probably be able to steer with road lines and recognize traffic lights and navigate a bit based on GPS but the human will still need to be attentive at all times. To me, these Cruise and Waymos are just a waste of time and money for scamming investors with delusional pipe dreams.

    Reply
    1. Agree totally, but they are spending the money for it. TX just allocated 1M for self-driving roadway stuff for autonomous trucks near Austin on 130 tollway. I think the plan is to run the stuff up the entire length of 130. Can’t wait to see the first time a fully driverless semi rolls over some puny cars with some humans as collateral damage. Abbott wants to be cool. Which is why they spend it. Austin too is dropping some money on some autonomous project. They can’t afford a full police squad, but they can afford “cool”. Personally I believe the autonomous stuff is just stupid. Now I do think autonomous VTOL’s are going to be the way to go, but only if they allow only autonomous in the sky with no ability for human intervention except for crashes. I see the sky as the “new” roads and so it would be easy to allow only autonomy. For the land based roads, the sunk investment that millions have spent for their cars means you cannot remove them from the roads, well not for 20+ years anyway.

      Reply
      1. I think highways will probably be a possibility for autonomous driving for sure. They are regularly well marked but if you get on a strip that is freshly paved you will have to manually override. So I am still very skeptical we will see a fully hands off able to nap setup in our lifetime. But as for city driving or suburb driving, I highly doubt it. I drove a Model Y and decided to try out its Autopilot. It worked ok on Route 4 in NJ which is a well marked highway but once I took the poorly marked (and paved) roads of Fairlawn I had to consistently correct the car before creeping into the opposite side. Its too dependent on road markings which just isn’t a given and in many cases poorly done or just not done at all (like on my residential street).

        BTW. I seen one of the Waymo i-Paces roaming the streets of Manhattan. The car was making its way down but seemed very overwhelmed and slow crawling. NYC would certainly be a place to test the limits of these systems.

        Reply
        1. No it isn’t. Waymo has not drug a human bloody like cruise did, YET. Why give it the chance? Since when did we as a culture say it is ok to beta test with human lives? What’s next, harvesting organs for cash? After all, it could save the life of someone important. Give street people have a purpose.

          Reply
  2. GM Cruise is already safer than a human driver, and Cruise software is improving every day. Microsoft has partnered with GM on this, and Microsoft brings AI, so, I expect the safety of Cruise will increase enormously, in time, and it’s already safer than the average driver.

    I’ve not seen the data for Waymo, but I expect Waymo is also safer than a human driver.

    AV is coming, and it will save lives. Get over it.

    Reply

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