Regulators at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) are looking deeper into the safety of various different autonomous driving systems following more reported incidents involving the technology.
According to a new report released on May 13, the regulatory body said that it looking into the autonomous driving systems of Alphabet's (GOOG) Waymo robotaxis following reports that the autonomous vehicles were responsible for collisions or violated traffic laws.
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As per the report, the NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation said it opened the investigation after receiving 22 reports of Waymo robotaxis, equipped with the company's fifth generation autonomous driving systems, that were "the sole vehicle operated during a collision" or have "exhibited driving behavior that potentially violated traffic safety laws."
Incidents reported to the agency included "collisions with stationary and semi-stationary objects such as gates and chains," as well as instances where Waymos hit parked cars. Other incidents also included a collision that occurred "shortly after” its vehicle's autonomous driving system “exhibited unexpected behavior" near traffic safety control devices.
Additionally, publicly available reports accessed by the NHTSA state that Waymo robotaxis were also involved in incidents where it veered onto the wrong side of the road into oncoming traffic, or entered construction zones.
The NHTSA's probe will look into the performance of Waymo's automated driving system and its ability to avoid collisions, as well as its ability to detect and respond to traffic safety control devices such as cones, traffic lights, and traffic signs. In its initial evaluation of these incidents, the regulators confirmed that Waymo's autonomous driving system was either actively engaged during said incidents, or were disengaged moments before the incident occurred.
In a statement to The Hill, a Waymo spokesperson defended the technology in its robotaxis and stated that it will cooperate in the investigation.
"At Waymo we currently serve over 50 thousand 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," the spokesperson said. "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."
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The NHTSA's bigger picture:
The probe into Waymo is the latest in a wave of recent investigations enacted by the NHTSA into automated driving systems. Most recently, it has opened an investigation into Amazon-owned (AMZN) Zoox after two of its vehicles were involved in two separate incidents involving collisions with motorcycles.
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Additionally, the agency is also looking into BlueCruise, the semi-autonomous, hands-free driver assist found on a variety of Ford (F) vehicles such as its Mustang Mach-e electric crossover. Its probe is looking into to see whether a more widespread investigation, or recall is necessary after two major incidents involving Mach-e vehicles driving at night on major interstates collided with parked cars while the system was activated.
The agency also concluded its probe into Tesla (TSLA) and its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving system, where it found that the systems were not designed to keep the driver engaged with the actual task of driving. In many of the hundreds of crashes it looked into, drivers leaned too heavily on the technology to the extent where critical evasive action were not able to be done in time to avoid a crash.
At the time of writing, Alphabet Inc. traded at $170.72 per share under (GOOG) on the Nasdaq
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