Last December, autonomous ride-hailing company Waymo was forced to temporarily suspend service in San Francisco for one day after a blackout left the robotic vehicles dead in the water and unable to navigate the city.
At the time, Waymo told TheStreet that the vehicles can navigate intersections where the traffic signal is inoperable, despite numerous videos showing the opposite.
But over the weekend, a new video emerged of the autonomous vehicles struggling with a similar situation, this time in Atlanta, GA.
Waymo officially launched its ride-hailing service in Atlanta last June, in partnership with Uber. The service operates within a 65-square-mile section of the city. But over the weekend, a group of autonomous white Jaguar I-PACE vehicles caused a minor traffic jam, completely blocking traffic on a three-lane highway while angry and fascinated drivers filmed the scene.
Inoperable Waymos cause a scene, traffic jam in Atlanta
Over the weekend, a video from Atlanta went viral, showing a group of three Waymos completely blocking traffic in one direction of a street, each stopped at the white line with a broken traffic light flashing red.
The video shows drivers stuck behind cars as people exit their vehicles and walk around the intersection, filming the chaos.
Waymo did not immediately return a request for comment, but this isn’t the first time something like this has happened.
Waymo was forced to suspend service in San Francisco because its vehicles apparently did not know the “four-way-stop” rule that applies to intersections with inoperable traffic lights.
The vehicles were filmed stuck at numerous intersections, unsure how to navigate the situation, causing even more turmoil on the roads as drivers slowly inch past electricity-less city blocks.
At the time, Waymo took issue with my description of the vehicle’s ignorance of the “four-way-stop” rule, saying that Waymo Driver is designed to handle dark traffic signals, but the vehicle may “occasionally request a confirmation check to ensure it is the safest choice.”
That weekend, Waymo received over 7,000 requests during the blackout, overwhelming their system and leading to all the confusion and chaos.
It’s unclear how many requests the company received this time around, but the outcome was the same; Waymo was unable to move, blocking traffic.
Photo by MattGush on Getty Images
Autonomous vehicles are better than human drivers at some things, insurance analyst says
Waymo, the most active of the U.S. robotaxi options, says that, compared to those with human drivers, its autonomous vehicles have been involved in 90% fewer crashes resulting in serious injuries.
Auto insurance companies have a lot at stake with this new technology. Autonomous vehicles could change insurance pricing at the most minute level. The question is: will it raise rates or lower them?
Right now, the industry is in a wait-and-see pattern.
“I don’t think they have the data yet to make that kind of assessment,” David Kidd, vice president for vehicle research at the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety, told Bloomberg when asked which drivers are more likely to crash: autonomous or human. “Most insurers are extremely conservative, and they rely on historical data to assess risk accurately. There just isn’t enough information available yet.”
Trent Victor, Waymo’s director of safety research and best practices, recently gave an interview saying much of the same, acknowledging that, “there is not yet sufficient mileage to make statistical conclusions about fatal crashes alone,” adding that “as we accumulate more mileage, it will become possible to make statistically significant conclusions on other subsets of data, including fatal crashes as its own category.”
Waymo vehicles have driven well over 130 million miles across the fleet and have been involved in at least two fatal crashes, MSN reported. However, the autonomous vehicle was not directly found responsible for either of them. Human drivers average about 123 million car miles traveled for every fatality, according to the IIHS.
So how can an AV company prove to IIHS that its vehicles are safer than human drivers?
“It would depend upon the use case,” according to Kidd. “If a trucking company operates AVs on interstates between two hubs, and they’re able to do that with very infrequent crashes compared to truck drivers, then I would say they provide a substantial safety improvement in that environment. But I wouldn’t generalize to say that means automation is safer across the board. Those assessments need to be done on a case-by-case basis.”
Waymo has struggled with certain real-world situations
Earlier this year, Waymo held a funding round in which it raised $16 billion at a $126 billion post-money valuation.
While Waymo’s financial future is secure, it has run into regulatory issues in recent months.
In December, after weeks of pressure from the Austin Independent School District, Waymo issued a voluntary recall of its autonomous vehicles due to a software issue that it said it had already patched.
In November, the Austin Independent School District publicized videos of the company’s robotaxis driving past Austin school buses with their stop signs and crossing bars deployed.
Waymo robotaxis were committing school bus traffic violations an average of 1.5 times per week in Austin, Texas.
In November, the Austin Independent School District publicized videos of the company’s robotaxis driving past Austin school buses with their stop signs and crossing bars deployed.
Waymo robotaxis were committing school bus traffic violations an average of 1.5 times per week in Austin, Texas.
But this wasn’t the first time Waymo faced scrutiny for this issue.
The NHTSA opened a Preliminary Evaluation in October to investigate an estimated 2,000 Waymo 5th-gen automated driving system-equipped vehicles, following a Georgia media report that revealed the same school bus violation.
But that isn’t the only real-world situation it has struggled with.
In recent months, two videos of a Waymo robotaxi driving through an active police standoff in two different cities have circulated online.
While most drivers can navigate those scenarios fairly easily, Waymo has not been able to. And one professor says he knows why.
“In like 95% of situations where a disengagement or accident happens with autonomous vehicles, it’s a very regular, routine situation for humans,” Henry Liu, professor of engineering at the University of Michigan, said recently. “These are not challenging situations whatsoever.”
“We have seen many reports from autonomous vehicle developers, and it looks like the numbers are very good and promising,” Liu said. “But I haven’t seen any unbiased, transparent analysis on autonomous vehicle safety. We don’t have the raw data.”
Waymo vehicles primarily drive on urban streets with a speed limit of 35 miles per hour or less. “It’s not really fair to compare that with human driving,” according to Liu.
Related: Ford issues massive recall for its most popular model