A deadly, multi-car collision in San Francisco on Sunday evening marks the first time in the U.S. that a truly autonomous vehicle, with no one in the driver’s seat, has been involved in a fatal collision, according to federal transportation records.

A self-driving Waymo car, which is not being blamed for the crash, was among six vehicles struck when a fast-moving vehicle slammed into a line of car stopped at a traffic light at the corner of 6^th and Harrison Streets, about a mile south of the city’s famed Union Square.

While the Waymo was empty, a passenger in one of the other struck vehicles and a dog were killed. Several others also suffered injuries, according to the San Francisco Police Department.

“An unoccupied Waymo vehicle operating autonomously was in a line of stand-still traffic when it was struck from behind by a vehicle that was impacted by another vehicle traveling at an extreme rate of speed,” a Waymo spokesperson wrote in a statement.  “The trust and safety of our community remain our top priority, and we are coordinating with local safety officials.”

First responders were on the scene of a multi-vehicle collision involving a Waymo robotaxi Sunday night in San Francisco that killed one person and injured seven, according to the fire department. Alyssa Goard reports.

NHTSA tracks frequency of driverless car collisions, but not who’s at fault

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration requires self-driving car companies, like Waymo, to report each time their vehicles are involved in an accident, regardless of whether the autonomous vehicle was at fault.  According to NHTSA, which began collecting such data in July 2021, Waymo’s driverless vehicles have been involved in about 30 different collisions resulting in some type of injury.  Waymo, however, has noted that nearly all those crashes, like Sunday’s collision, were the fault of other cars driven by humans.  While NHTSA’s crash data doesn’t note whether self-driving vehicles may have been to blame, Waymo has previously noted that it only expects to pay out insurance liability claims for two previous collisions involving its driverless vehicles that resulted in injuries.

In December, Waymo touted the findings of its latest safety analysis, which determined its fleet of driverless cars continue to outperform human drivers across major safety metrics.  The report, authored by Waymo and its partners at the Swiss Reinsurance Company, reviewed insurance claim data to explore how often human drivers and autonomous vehicles are found to be liable in car collisions. According to the study, Waymo’s self-driving vehicles faced about 90% fewer insurance claims relating to property damage and bodily injuries compared to human drivers.

Another self-driving car was also involved in a fatal wreck in 2018

While Sunday’s collision marks the first fatal crash involving a driverless car, it was nearly seven years ago when another autonomous vehicle was involved in a deadly collision with a pedestrian, though that self-driving car had a human safety driver behind the wheel.  The accident, which occurred in March 2018, involved an autonomous car from Uber, which sold off its self-driving division two years later to a competitor.  The car struck and killed a pedestrian who was jaywalking at about 10pm. In a 2019 report issued by the National Transportation Safety Board, investigators cited an “inadequate safety culture” at Uber, and noted “inadequate safety risk assessment procedures, ineffective oversight of vehicle operators, and [a] lack of adequate mechanisms for addressing operators’ automation complacency.” Other contributing factors, according to the NTSB, included drugs being found in the pedestrian’s system and the “failure of the vehicle operator to monitor the driving environment and the operation of the automated driving system because she was visually distracted throughout the trip by her personal cell phone.”

Waymo’s self-driving cars first hit public roadways, without anyone in the driver’s seat, back in 2015. The company’s fleet of autonomous vehicles have traveled more than 33 million miles and have provided more than five million rides across San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Austin.  San Francisco alone is home to about 300 driverless Waymo vehicles, though they’re not all on the road at the same time.

In California, there are more than 30 companies currently permitted by the DMV to test driverless cars on the open road.  While most are still required to have safety drivers sitting in the front seat who can take over when needed, Waymo remains the only fleet of robotaxis in California to move past the state’s testing phase to, now, regularly offer paid rides to passengers.

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