Gridlock Guy: Should Waymo be held to a higher standard than human drivers?

There have been numerous documented incidents in recent months of autonomous Waymo vehicles misbehaving. The most alarming of these went viral, as an unmanned Waymo drove through a stopped, loading school bus stop sign.

People were outraged, and lawmakers have wanted to pause the self-driving vehicles until Waymo’s parent company, Alphabet Inc. (Google who that is) can iron out the issues.

But is Waymo getting a fair shake? Maybe not.

The Georgia Governor’s Office of Highway Safety reported in August that some 9,000 Georgians run bus stops daily. AAA’s findings show 41% of Georgians admit to speeding and 28% admit to texting and driving in school zones. The real percentages are probably higher.

Atlanta Public Schools told 11Alive and the AJC that they have noticed a Waymo not observing a school bus stop sign at least six times. APS can pick up these infractions on stop arm cameras, a feature that not every school system uses.

So, there very well could be more incidents of this kind in metro Atlanta.

Austin, Texas, has also seen Waymo cars on the struggle bus. The Austin Independent School System told Waymo in a Nov. 20 letter that it has detected 19 Waymo vehicles running school bus stop signs since the school year began.

Some lawmakers and education officials are demanding changes. Austin’s school system has written Waymo multiple times and indicated that previous software updates have not alleviated the issue.

In Georgia, state Sen. Rick Williams (R-Milledgeville) has been outspoken about Waymo vehicles ever since the first and viral report of one ignoring a stopped bus back in October.

Williams co-authored Addy’s Law, named after the Henry County 8-year-old that an errant driver hit and killed next to a school bus.

Williams has said he wants the entire program paused until the tech company can guarantee its vehicles behave around buses. Atlanta Public Schools has told its bus drivers to be extra aware of the white vehicles adorned with cameras and sensors.

Even Fulton County Commissioner Robb Pitts, who has been a big proponent of autonomous vehicles, has suggested a temporary moratorium on AV operation during school loading times.

But is the outrage over awry Waymos outsized?

Human drivers, as evidenced by the statistics from the GOHS and AAA, have far worse records in school zones than driverless cars do. People are much more likely to speed and swerve, to be angry and impatient, and to drive distracted.

In fact, the frailty of humans is precisely what Waymo references in defense of its product.

“Waymo experiences 12 times fewer injury crashes involving pedestrians than human drivers,” a company official said via email in regard to the recent mistakes its vehicles have made.

But they then made a very nonrobotic mea culpa, saying “holding the highest safety standards means recognizing when our behavior should be better.” So, they are offering a voluntary software recall that is specifically related to these problems around school buses.

There is far less outrage over humanoids making the same mistakes as androids, even though people mess up more often. Maybe we are used to it and save the unrest for when someone finally gets hurt.

Disobeying school bus stoppages is not Waymo’s only faux pas. The AVs have been known to have overnight beeping sessions when parking themselves and also get tangled amongst themselves in the middle of streets in San Francisco. They have randomly stopped in intersections, too.

The technology is still new, and Waymo is the biggest of the initial interrupters in the industry, so they are going to get the most flak.

But AVs have the potential to eventually make the roads far more safe. As companies work out more bugs, stories like these will likely happen far less often in the future.

In the meantime, Waymo needs to fix its mishaps in school zones. The potential for a safer streetscape is worth the effort and the wait.

Doug Turnbull covers the traffic/transportation beat for WXIA-TV (11Alive). His reports appear on the 11Alive Morning News from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and on 11Alive.com. Email Doug at dturnbull@11alive.com.