A new incident is now plaguing the safety and integrity of Waymo's autonomous driving cars after a fatal incident involving a pet dog in San Fransisco was recently revealed by reports. The autonomous driving car, even with a safety driver inside, could not avoid the collision with the poor dog, which sprung onto the roads, resulting in the pet's death.
The report from Waymo said that the investigation is still ongoing but has not claimed who was responsible for the accident if it was its autonomous vehicle or the pet owner.
Waymo's Autonomous Driving Car Ran Over a Dog in SF
A public report was spotted by TechCrunch from Waymo back on May 21, where an accident took place in Toland Street, San Fransisco City, with the autonomous car running over a small dog that ran to the road. This involved Waymo's Jaguar I-Pace electric vehicle, the car which runs its entire fleet now, and a small dog that appeared behind a parked car and onto the self-driving car.
The place of the incident was over a block away from Waymo's warehouse in Toland St., a place that houses as many as 50 autonomous cars of the company.
At the time of the incident, Waymo's vehicle was engaged in a Level 4 ADS autonomous mode, present with a safety technician in the driver's seat.
It is Still Unknown Who is in the Wrong in this Incident
In Waymo's statement via Ars Technica, the car's autonomous tech correctly identified the dog that ran on the street. However, the incident still happened, and made contact with the runaway pet. Waymo said that it is still investigating the incident along with officials, with the car also sustaining damages from its collision with the canine.
Waymo and its Autonomous Driving Technology
Alphabet's Waymo has never had any fatalities apart from this recent incident in San Fransisco, and this remains one of the darkest moments in the autonomous driving tech's history. The ride-hailing service's pilot program started in San Fransisco in late 2021, with the company first seeing its operations in the Golden State city.
There have been no recorded fatalities or accidents involving humans or other vehicles in the past, but there was one unknown phenomenon for the service and its autonomous tech. This is with the robotaxis of the company coming to one dead-end street for unknown reasons, getting the attention of the country and Elon Musk.
While driverless rides are already operational in the company's pilot city, several cases still had test drivers monitoring their rides in the driver's seat of the vehicle. In an unfortunate event, even with the safety personnel in the vehicle, an accident claimed the life of one pupper, with Waymo still getting to the bottom of what happened at the end of May.
