PHOENIX — The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating 22 incidents involving Waymo's driverless vehicles. 17 of the incidents are crashes and eight of the crashes happened in Arizona.
Waymo has been offering driverless taxis to the public in Arizona since 2020, longer than anywhere else, but NHTSA said they've been alerted to incidents in which cars violated traffic laws or acted erratically.
“Waymo has good technology with a good track record, but it's not perfect, which means that we do rely on regulators like NHTSA to hold them accountable and this is exactly what's happening now," said Andrew Maynard, a professor of advanced technology transitions at ASU.
Valley autonomous car crashes under investigation
Out of the eight crashes under investigation in Arizona, five occurred in Phoenix. One each happened in Tempe, Gilbert and Scottsdale.
They happened from December of 2022 through February of 2024, according to the available data. Four happened in parking lots while the others occurred on streets. The highest speed traveling pre-crash was 35 mph with the slowest being at 2 mph.
Passengers were inside of the autonomous vehicles during four of the crashes. No injuries were reported in any of the incidents.
Only one crash, an October 2023 incident in Phoenix, involved law enforcement.
The data was impressive to Maynard.
"Waymo have been operating in Arizona, in the Valley, for longer than they have anywhere else on the roads, and so you would have expected there to be more instance here than elsewhere, and that, I think, is good news for us in the Valley," Maynard said. "It does raise questions around what has been happening elsewhere. Maybe it's different road conditions, but we don't know."
A Waymo spokesperson sent 12News this statement regarding the investigations:
At Waymo we currently serve over 50,000 weekly trips for our riders in some of the most challenging and complex environments. We are proud of our performance and safety record over tens of millions of autonomous miles driven, as well as our demonstrated commitment to safety transparency. 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.”
Maynard said the federal investigation could lead to a recall.
"It could be that NHTSA decide that there is something awry with the algorithms in the cars, which means it needs to be fixed. And typically, the way they will do that is they'll issue a recall, which means that Waymo will have to try and fix the glitches that are causing the problems," Maynard said.
Maynard said although the technology isn't perfect, evidence shows the vehicles are safe.
“Certainly from all the evidence we've seen, it is a sufficiently safe mode of transportation. I wouldn't say 100 percent safe because nothing is, but it's safe enough for people like me to trust it and enjoy using it," Maynard said.
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