Unions urge NHTSA to probe Waymo, Zoox after Cruise crashes: ‘Unsafe and untenable’
WASHINGTON — Greater than two dozen unions urged U.S. auto security regulators on Thursday to open an industry-wide probe into driverless automobiles together with Alphabet’s Waymo and Amazon.com’s Zoox.
The unions, together with the Transportation Trades Division, Transport Employees Union of America, Teamsters and United Auto Employees, cited the current investigation into Common Motors‘ self-driving unit Cruise and California’s determination to droop Cruise testing.
Driverless automobiles “are unsafe and untenable of their present type. This {industry} is in dire want of federal regulation and management to revive a modicum of security and set up a practical path for these automobiles to function with out threatening different highway customers,” they mentioned in a letter to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Ann Carlson, performing administrator on the Nationwide Freeway Site visitors Security Administration (NHTSA). The letter additionally mentioned staff are dealing with questions of safety from robotaxis.
“NHTSA should provoke an industry-wide investigation to find out the true extent of the protection failures behind the scenes,” the letter added.
Waymo, Zoox and NHTSA didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
The letter mentioned it’s time for NHTSA to “step up its regulatory authority to make sure these automobiles are being operated responsibly and with the intense oversight they require.”
In March, NHTSA mentioned it was probing the self-certification by Zoox in 2022 of a robotaxi with out conventional driving controls.
Cruise on Wednesday recalled 950 driverless vehicles from the roads throughout the US following a crash involving certainly one of its robotaxis and can probably difficulty extra remembers.
Final month, a pedestrian in San Francisco was struck by a hit-and-run driver and thrown into an adjoining lane and was hit a second time by a Cruise robotaxi that was not in a position to cease in time. The automobile then moved once more, dragging the pedestrian.
Cruise final month mentioned it will halt operations nationwide after California regulators suspended the robotaxi operator’s license, saying the Cruise self-driving automobiles had been a danger to the general public. The corporate on Monday mentioned it’s quickly halting manufacturing of its absolutely autonomous Cruise Origin.
