Unhappy Arizona residents slashing Waymo tires, derailing self-driving cars, more
The advent of new technology comes with complaints, seen with Wing's delivery drones, but in the case of self-driving cars, there have been more radical expressions of dissatisfaction. As Waymo tests and drives vehicles in Phoenix, some Arizona residents have threatened or damaged the cars.
A New York Times report today followed up on events first illuminated by Arizona Republic earlier this month. There have been at least 21 attacks since 2017 which range in severity from seemingly pure accident to more serious actions.
The most deranged incident took place in August when a man armed with a gun attempted to scare the security driver into an autonomous Chrysler Pacifica. This man mentioned the Uber incident that killed a pedestrian earlier this year, and was eventually charged with aggravated attack and disorderly behavior.
Another security driver was threatened by a PVC pipe, while other incidents involve people throwing stones, blocking routes, and slashing the vehicles in Waymo. There are also attempts to track the car while driving autonomously. A particular jeep last year tried to drive Chrysler Pacificas off the road six times.
In all of these cases, Waymo or security drivers have not pushed costs. The alphabet division controls its drivers to first contact the internal shipping system during events.
In fact, political contact is kept to a minimum, with an event not reported until four days after it occurred. According to NYT Waymo is, in some cases, unwilling to record the attack. This always beats the benefits of self-driving vehicles maintaining video of everything happening around the car.
Waymo notes that these events represent only a small part of the operation and pushed back against the story that it attempted to avoid poor publicity by not pursuing charges. The events did not turn off the alphabet, with Waymo noting how "Over the past two years, we have found Arizonans to be accommodating and excited about the potential of this technology to make the roads safer."
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