Beginning this week, Cruise autonomous vehicles (AVs) will be safety-tested on roads in Phoenix with drivers behind the wheel. Meanwhile, two Zoox AV-involved crashes are being investigated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

The company pulled all its vehicles off U.S. roadways last October after the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) suspended the Cruise operations, in part due to safety, but also because the state said Cruise “misrepresented” information related to the vehicles’ safety.

The suspension came shortly after an August collision between a Cruise vehicle and a firetruck in San Francisco and a pedestrian-involved incident.

For the past several weeks, Cruise says it has been mapping and collecting road information in Phoenix and will now validate its AV end-to-end behaviors against “rigorous safety and AV performance requirements.”

“Supervised autonomous driving is a critical validation phase prior to driverless deployment and builds on our extensive work in simulation, closed-course driving and more than 5 million driverless miles previously driven by our fleet to ensure safe performance on real-world roads and driving scenarios,” a Cruise news release states.

“Safety drivers play an important role in testing the AV’s performance and the continuous improvement of our technology. We’ll begin supervised autonomous driving in the city of Phoenix and will gradually expand to Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, Tempe, Mesa, Gilbert and Chandler measured against predetermined safety benchmarks.”

Cruise added that it’s making progress toward resuming driverless operations. It emphasized its focus on safety, which is broken down into three pillars — product safety, operational safety, and enterprise safety, according to the release.

Cruise shared brief information in the release about each pillar:

• • “Product safety: Cruise AVs are fully integrated autonomous vehicles derived from the Chevy Bolt EV platform, manufactured by General Motors, and tested to validate that the vehicles meet all motor vehicle safety requirements after the addition and installation of Cruise AV hardware (sensors, etc.). We have procedures in place to ensure our AVs are appropriately maintained and that new software is thoroughly tested and validated through a measured release process prior to deploying to the fleet.
  • “Operational safety: We have documented procedures and protocols in place to ensure the safety of our fleet operations for those in our vehicles and those we share the road with, including driver training, ongoing performance management processes, and responsible scaling of operations.
  • “Enterprise safety: Safe operations start with a safety-focused culture, and every worker at Cruise is empowered and responsible for the safety of our product and operations. We enable safety culture through appropriate governance, policies, reporting mechanisms, and regular safety training.”

Cruise encourages anyone with driving concerns to report them within its Community Feedback portal. Each claim is investigated and, if needed, action is taken.

Amazon’s Zoox is also facing safety concerns over rear-end collisions, which NHTSA has launched an investigation into.

A May 10 NHTSA document states that its Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) received reports of two incidents involving Zoox vehicles that braked suddenly, each causing a motorcyclist to rear-end the AVs. Minor injuries were reported, according to the ODI.

Both collisions involved a Toyota Highlander equipped with Zoox Automated Driving System (ADS).

The incident reports received by NHTSA were submitted under Standing General Order 2021-01 (SGO). The SGO requires OEMs to report crashes on public roads that involve Level 2 or higher advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) if the systems are in use within 30 seconds of a collision that causes injury or property damage.

Through its initial investigation of both incidents, ODI has confirmed that each of the Zoox vehicles was operating with the ADS engaged in the moments leading up to each collision.

ODI says its preliminary evaluation will investigate Zoox ADS performance, behavior in crosswalks around vulnerable road users, and in other similar rear-end collision scenarios.

NHTSA is also looking into 22 collisions involving Waymo AVs based on incidents reported under the SGO.

Reports include collisions with stationary and semi-stationary objects such as gates, chains, and parked vehicles as well as instances in which the ADS appeared to disobey traffic safety control devices, according to ODI.

“In certain incidents, a collision occurred shortly after the ADS exhibited unexpected behavior near traffic safety control devices,” a May 13 investigatory document posted by ODI states. “…Other incidents, such as vehicles driving in opposing lanes with nearby oncoming traffic or entering construction zones, were identified based on publicly available reports.

“Based on initial evaluation of these incidents, NHTSA understands that the Waymo ADS was either engaged throughout the incident or, in certain cases when supervised by an in-vehicle test driver, the ADS disengaged in the moments just before an incident occurred.”

ODI has opened a Preliminary Evaluation to investigate Waymo’s fifth-generation ADS performance in the reported incidents and similar scenarios and to more closely assess any commonalities in these incidents, according to the document. The investigation will also evaluate the ADS performance in detecting and responding to traffic control devices and in avoiding collisions with stationary and semi-stationary objects and vehicles.

The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) Transportation Trades Department (TTD) and nearly 30 other transportation labor unions called for NHTSA to investigate Waymo and Zoox safety-related concerns in November 2023.

“While we would have preferred immediate action, this is still an important step in ensuring the safety of millions of road users, pedestrians, and workers,” said TTD President Greg Regan, in a news release.

“As robotaxis and similar vehicles have been deployed across the country, workers have faced increasing safety threats on the job. Firefighters and police have been forced to jump out of the path of driverless taxis moving through emergency cordons. Bikeshare workers have been forced to dodge these vehicles abruptly stopping in bike lanes and crosswalks. Transit and sanitation workers have been boxed in, cut off, and trapped inside their vehicles by driverless cars driving erratically. Construction and maintenance workers, who stand in harm’s way every day on our roads, have seen driverless vehicles pull into construction sites. These safety issues are exacerbated by operational chaos as driverless cars are failing to use public roads in safe, predictable ways.”

The TTD requested that federal crash reporting requirements be expanded to all significant performance deviations and safety-focused federal AV regulations.

Images

Featured image: A Zoox AV in operation. (Provided by Zoox)