A Waymo autonomous vehicle jumped onto the light-rail tracks in Phoenix last week, forcing a frightened passenger to flee.
The incident happened near Central and Southern Avenues in Phoenix. The car drives onto the light-rail tracks and stops as a train approaches. The passenger bails out and the car continues to drive down the tracks towards a different train.
“I actually felt a little sorry for the car. It obviously made a bad decision and got itself in a difficult place,” said Andrew Maynard, an emerging and transformative technology professor at Arizona State University told AZ Family.
“This is exactly one of those edge cases, what we call them. Something unexpected where the machine drove like a machine rather than a person,” Maynard said.
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Waymo vehicles are equipped with 29 cameras and update their routes and systems weekly. However, in the area where the incident happened, there was construction and the light rail was added to this spot within the last year, which Maynard said could have contributed to the rail track detour.
“I think Waymo has a challenge because no matter what they do with their system, there are always going to be unexpected circumstances where they have to learn from them,” Maynard said.
Maynard told the outlet that he still believes autonomous cars are safer than those driven by humans.
Valley Metro, the authority that manages the light-rail system, said this:
“At approximately 9 a.m. on Wednesday morning, a Valley Metro employee observed an autonomous Waymo vehicle on the northbound light rail tracks near Southern Avenue and Central Avenue in Phoenix. Our Operations Control Center was immediately notified, light rail operations staff responded to the scene, and Waymo was contacted. To minimize service impacts, northbound and southbound trains exchanged passengers before reversing direction to continue service. The incident caused no significant delays and the scene was clear by 9:15 a.m.
For any further information on Waymo, its vehicle or operation, please reach out to Waymo.“
We’ve reached out to Waymo for comment and will update if and when we hear back.
[Images: Waymo]
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