Twice Waymo vehicles have had encounters of a different kind. In one incident in Tempe, Arizona, a pedestrian smashed the windshield of a Waymo Jaguar iPace after jumping on the hood.
According to the company, a Waymo vehicle was traveling down the street in autonomous mode at 3AM on July 5th when a pedestrian ran out in front of it. The safety driver saw the pedestrian and switched the vehicle into manual mode, bringing it to a full stop before the person leaped onto the hood. The person, whom Waymo spokesperson Nick Smith described as “erratic” then punctured the windshield, injuring the driver.
The Verge
The perpetrator was caught by the police a short time later. Here you can see the vehicle after the crime with the smashed window.
In a second incident, according to reddit user skinnybonez32, the vehicle in San Francisco came to the hands of a boisterous mob that was dancing in the streets. Several participants jumped on the roof of the car and continued dancing there.
Here, too, there is a security driver in the vehicle who, visibly annoyed, has realized that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. it is painful to watch, given that those sensors cost tens of thousands of dollars.
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We will certainly hear more about this type of event. In fact, such reports are nothing new. Years ago in Austin, Texas, a resident of a street with single-family homes dressed only in shorts enthusiastically threw himself onto the hood of a Waymo (at that time still Google Self-Driving) and forced the vehicle to stop.
These are precisely the reasons why autonomous cars need to be driven in reality, so that they can learn to deal safely with such very rarely occurring scenarios.
This article was also published in German.
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