PHOENIX – As more cars hit our roads with empty driver seats, there are increasing safety questions about how humans and robots “share the road.”

By the end of October, Waymo says it will offer more than 150,000 paid rides a week in its self-driving cars, covering a million miles. This is three times the number of weekly trips compared to June 2024.

While Waymo has expanded to four cities, Phoenix has the largest operating area at 315 square miles.

As the company grows, so do safety concerns and questions about how often people intervene in “fully autonomous” rides.

Waymo vs Semi

Truck driver Shabani Kwizera uses a loading dock next to a central Phoenix Waymo hub. On TikTok last month, he posted a semi-accident with a Waymo in the driveway to the complex.

“(The semi-trucks) stop right here to check traffic,” Kwizera said in the video, panning the camera to the middle of the driveway. “These Waymos came from behind and from the right side. The driver didn’t see it when he turned – the Waymo was on the blind side.”

Kwizera said the truck smashed into the Waymo as it turned right. The autonomous car had black scratch marks on the front fascia on the driver’s side. Based on what he saw, Kwizera said a human driver would have become accustomed to the truck’s turning radius and blind spot.

“They will give us space to pivot, but what happened with Waymo is they don’t give us space,” he said. Phoenix police told ABC15 they were investigating this accident.

Federal investigation into vehicle safety

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating 31 reports of accidents and suspected traffic violations involving Waymos. In letters to the manufacturer of self-driving cars last spring, federal safety authorities demanded comprehensive documentation. An NHTSA letter said the autonomous vehicles exhibited “unexpected driving behaviors” that “could increase the risk of accidents, property damage and injury.” The letters also described “collisions with clearly visible objects that a competent driver should avoid.”

“The industry has largely ignored all the annoyances, problems and loose ends,” said Phil Koopman, an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University who has studied self-driving car safety for 25 years.

He is closely monitoring the federal investigation and Waymo’s two voluntary recalls earlier this year following accidents in the Phoenix area.

“People could no longer say: Well, nothing is going wrong. Leave us alone. “They hinder progress,” Koopman said.

Waymo’s website says the company is “on a mission to be the most trusted driver in the world.” The company has several vehicle safety analytics. Waymo’s latest data covered the first 25 million miles of operation and showed that the fully autonomous vehicles had 81% fewer airbag deployment crashes, fewer injury crashes and 57% fewer police-reported crashes compared to people in the Cities where they traveled the same distance, Waymo is active.

Koopman says that statistically, we may not know whether Waymos are safer than human drivers until the self-driving cars have driven a billion miles.

“We will see the rare events play a larger role and make us more concerned about the safety of events,” Koopman said. “We’ve seen them make robotic mistakes.”

Safety concerns as Waymo continues to expand driverless rides

In social media videos now part of the federal investigation, Waymos appears to perform unexpected maneuvers, including cutting off a bus that had the right of way, swerving behind a landscaping truck, entering a closed construction zone and blocking a major intersection .

Professor Koopman used examples to explain how autonomous cars use machine learning.

“What if it sees something it doesn’t know, as an example?” Koopman said. “Not only does it not know what to do, it often has a false sense of confidence and just makes something up and just does something crazy.”

Waymo’s remote support

Joel Ricks Johnson, a YouTuber from Arizona, said he has documented more than 170 Waymo rides. A video that has more than 500,000 views shows a Waymo “going rogue” when it hits traffic cones.

“The car tried to turn right, but it just couldn’t because there were cones in the lane,” Johnson said.

The YouTuber posts 170 videos about riding in Waymos

During the incident three years ago, Johnson said he called for driver assistance from the back seat of the robo-car.

In its blog, Waymo describes its fleet response system as “Phone-a-Friend.” Employees use their computers to connect to the car and remotely check the onboard cameras and sensors. The car can prompt remote human assistants with multiple-choice questions to provide better context of the situation. The remote support team can also give the vehicle a trajectory to follow.

Johnson said in his case, “It was like humans were fighting with a robot, and then it actually got stuck in high-speed traffic.”

Waymo then dispatched a human roadside assistance technician to the scene to take over driving, but as the technician approached, Johnson said the Waymo car began to drive away.

“Waymo tried to escape,” Johnson said in the video. He estimates that his Waymo rides required roadside assistance four to five times over the course of 2,400 miles.

“I don’t know if I’m exactly the normal, typical driver,” Johnson said.

ABC15 Investigators emailed Waymo asking for more information about remote assistance operations and the frequency of human intervention.

The company declined to provide us with insight into its remote support efforts.

A Waymo spokesman did not provide information on how many people are helping the cars, saying it is not a strict ratio. Instead, he wrote, “Waymo sets service quality expectations based on rapid response times, and we adjust and maintain workforces to meet those standards.” Waymo did not explain those standards.

Johnson said Waymo has been “cautious about statistics” and that it is not entirely clear in all cases when human intervention occurs in a robo-taxi ride.

“You can sometimes tell if the car is going into a strange situation because there are little clues here and there, like the hazard lights coming on, the steering looking weird, or the planned path getting really short,” Johnson said.

Johnson said he feels very safe overall.

“My mission is to document the progress of autonomous vehicles over time,” the YouTuber added. He said he pays for all his rides himself.

A Waymo representative told ABC15 that the autonomous driver improves over time using artificial intelligence and operational improvements and can “resolve ambiguous scenarios independently and requires less assistance.”

A Waymo spokesperson also told ABC15 that the company is complying with the NHTSA investigation.

NHTSA officials declined an interview request because the agency generally does not comment on an ongoing investigation, but a spokesperson provided the following statement:

“The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s approach to advanced vehicle technologies prioritizes safety in multiple areas, including data collection and analysis, research, rulemaking and enforcement.
  
“NHTSA has used its authority in unprecedented ways to ensure the safety of vehicles with advanced technologies, including the introduction of a first of its kind.” Standing general order requiring reporting of accidents and initiating a demonstration program to improve public safety and transparency of ADS operations. The Permanent General Regulation also requires reporting of certain crashes These are vehicles with advanced driver assistance systems.

“NHTSA will continue to hold manufacturers accountable for any products that pose unreasonable safety risks. “The agency has initiated multiple investigations into multiple manufacturers regarding potential safety defects in ADS systems, which have resulted in recalls of multiple ADS systems.”

Do you have a video or story about self-driving vehicles that you would like to share? Reach ABC15 Senior Investigator Melissa Blasius by email at [email protected] or by phone at 602-803-2506. Follow her on X (formerly Twitter) @MelissaBlasius or Facebook.