SAN JOSE, Calif. — On Friday, Waymo announced a voluntary recall after recorded issues in Texas.
Videos showed the robotaxis illegally driving past stopped school buses in Austin.
No injuries were reported, but after more than 19 incidents, school leaders asked Waymo to pause all operations near schools during pick-up and drop-off.
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Our sister station KGO-TV spoke with tech analyst and San Jose State professor Ahmed Banafa.
“The issue of autonomous cars is trust, why should I take this car and this car has this history? Now the software they have to do it because again we’re talking about near miss,” Banafa said.
In a statement to KGO-TV, Waymo says it is not taking its robotaxis off the roads for the recall. It says all vehicles had a software update by Nov. 17.
“Are they open for a third party to check that for them? That’s my biggest question, just to make sure that they gain the trust- this is part of the transparency and accountability,” Banafa said.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is asking Waymo to answer a series of questions about the Texas incidents.
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“I think it’s driving like how a lot of humans do, I think it’s driving the way it should to kind of interact with other human drivers basically and for the most part it’s safe, I mean there’s obviously still improvements they can make it’s like they’re 99% there but there’s still things to tweak but I think that’s kind of part of the process,” Waymo passenger Ethan Frommer said.
Waymo says its robotaxis have a better safety record than human drivers when it comes to injury crashes.
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