Federal Probe Launched Into Waymo and Zoox Over Erratic Behavior in Self-Driving Cars

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is probing two self-driving vehicle companies after incidents where their cars acted unpredictably, breaching traffic safety rules or getting into accidents.

Waymo, the self-driving technology arm of Alphabet (Google’s parent company), and Zoox, Amazon’s autonomous vehicle subsidiary, are being investigated. These companies must report any crashes or incidents involving their vehicles on public roads, as required by regulators.

According to documents posted online by the NHTSA, which include cases in which vehicles “appeared to disobey traffic safety control devices,” the agency has discovered 22 incidents in which self-driving Waymo cars “exhibited driving behavior that potentially violated traffic safety laws.” In certain situations, the vehicles collided with stationary objects like gates and chains. This sometimes happened after the vehicles “exhibited unexpected behaviors.”

At times, the Waymo vehicle operated independently, while in other instances, a human sat in the driver’s seat overseeing its functions. When a human driver was present, the Waymo vehicle’s autonomous driving system was deactivated just before a collision occurred. The NHTSA stated that details regarding these incidents were either submitted to them as mandated by federal regulations or gathered from publicly accessible sources.

Waymo said in a statement to CNN, “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.”

In the statement, Waymo implied that it is cooperating with the NHTSA in the investigation.

Also under investigation by the NHTSA are all the self-driving vehicles run by Zoox. The self-driving Toyota Highlanders operated by Zoox braked suddenly and unexpectedly in two different incidents, leading motorcyclists to crash into them. One crash caused minor injuries to a motorcyclist, and in the other, a Zoox safety driver was hurt. The NHTSA is probing into Zoox self-driving system’s “behavior in crosswalks around vulnerable road users, and in other similar rear-end collision scenarios.”

In an email, a Zoox spokesperson said, “Transparency and collaboration with regulators is of the utmost importance, and we remain committed to working closely with NHTSA to answer their questions.”