The highway safety agency of the United States has begun a probe into Waymo’s self-driving cars.
After getting more than twenty reports of Waymo cars crashing or breaking traffic rules, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration put up documents. Since self-driving features have been causing problems, the agency has started four investigations into vehicles with these features in the last month alone.
The self-driving car company Waymo, which used to be part of Google, had seventeen reports of accidents and five reports of traffic violations. The cars in the accidents hit things that didn’t move, like chains, stopped cars, or gates.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has agreed to keep working with Waymo on its goal to “become the world’s most trusted driver.” The business said that they take more than 50,000 people on trips every week.
According to Waymo, they were also happy of their performance and safety record over tens of millions of miles driven by themselves, as well as their commitment to being open about safety.
In California and Arizona, the company has been running robotaxis without human drivers. In the past, the NHTSA has been blamed for “moving slowly” when it comes to regulating Tesla. However, the investigations into this case were quick.
Michael Brooks, who runs the non-profit Center for Auto Safety, said, “In the end, I think it’s a good thing that they’re taking these steps to try to figure out why these cars are acting the way they are.”
Because of this, they said they would look into the 22 accidents involving Waymo’s fifth-generation driving system to “more closely assess any commonalities in these incidents.”
