A little before 3 p.m. today, a Waymo driverless car struck a cyclist at the intersection of 17th and Mississippi streets in Potrero Hill, leaving the cyclist with minor injuries.
According to Waymo, the autonomous vehicle hit the cyclist because the cyclist was obstructed by a large truck in the seconds before the collision. Despite the Waymo’s “heavy braking,” the self-driving car was “not able to avoid the collision.”
“The Waymo vehicle was at a complete stop at a four-way intersection. An oncoming large truck progressed through the intersection in our direction and then, at our turn to proceed, we moved into the intersection,” read the company’s statement.
“The cyclist was occluded by the truck and quickly followed behind it, crossing into the Waymo vehicle’s path. When they became unoccluded, our vehicle applied heavy braking but was not able to avoid the collision.”
Waymo said it called 911 and that the “cyclist left on their own.” The company said it was in contact with the relevant authorities regarding the incident.
The San Francisco Fire Department said that paramedics responded to a 911 call placed at 2:43 p.m. They arrived within four minutes to the intersection and “encountered a cyclist, performed an assessment, and the cyclist was not transported to the hospital,” a fire department spokesperson said.
A police spokesperson wrote in a statement that, at 3:02 p.m., “San Francisco police officers responded to the area of 17th and Mississippi regarding a vehicle collision with a bicyclist.”
“Officers arrived on scene, and located an autonomous vehicle that was involved in a collision,” the spokesperson wrote. “Officers located the cyclist, who suffered non-life-threatening injuries.”
“No occupants of the driverless vehicle reported injury at this time,” he added. It is unclear how many people were in the car.
District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton, who represents the area, flagged the incident half an hour later: “Driverless Waymo vehicle just struck a cyclist at 17th and Mississippi,” read his post. “So much for safety.”
The Board of Supervisors has long been critical of driverless vehicles in the city, with Board President Aaron Peskin frequently stating that the technology is “not ready for prime time.”
In October, a pedestrian was hit and dragged by a Cruise car, leading to the autonomous car company’s fleet being indefinitely grounded. Cruise executives were questioned today over whether they misled California regulators regarding the incident.
There had also previously been dozens of reports of Waymo and Cruise vehicles interfering with emergency scenes.
Despite criticism of autonomous vehicles, none have yet been involved in a death in San Francisco. Meanwhile, the city saw 25 traffic deaths last year caused by human drivers.
“Despite criticism of autonomous vehicles, none have — as yet — been involved in a death in San Francisco. Meanwhile, the city saw 25 traffic deaths last year caused by human drivers” sure but I’d be more interested to see the accident rate expressed as a percentage of drivers/ driverless vehicles rather than by numbers. Also as someone who has been in the position of being knocked off my bike by a car, I have questions about this scenario, like how do you get insurance info from a robot
I made the same point after you did. Moderator, please delete!
The commenter’s statement regarding the cyclist’s potential illegal or unpredictable acts merely underlines why driverless vehicles should be banned. Robotic/AI predictors aren’t necessarily going to react in the way that a human will to same or similar circumstances. Naysayers might respond by saying yep, a human would have squished the biker, but it’s just as likely that a human would have stopped faster.
Human drivers are much more dangerous. Waymo never gets drunk or mad or impatient. I haven’t heard one beep at people, something humans to too often and at an inappropriate moment. Waymo doesn’t get distracted. Waymo isn’t involved in car chases. It’s not a vehicle that lends itself to terror or bullying. They don’t park overnight on the streets taking up valuable spaces for human drivers. They don’t participate in these spin the wheels contests.
What they need is more transparency and they need to work out some bugs. It takes time. We certainly allot considerable time while young drivers learn their way around. And have you ever tried to get an older person to stop driving because they are a menace? Humans are much more dangerous.
Waymos seem to be programmed to speed through yellow lights—just like humans! Oh yeah, they’re programmed by humans…
Some humans will run you over, some won’t, some might. It’s an odds game, which is awful. The status quo sucks.
Sounds like Waymo is at fault. It executed a left turn too quickly and didn’t account for the possibility that someone on a bike was right behind the truck. Exactly the kind of bad driving that robo-cars were supposedly going to solve.
Whenever a driver strikes a pedestrian or cyclist, the knee jerk reaction is to look for whether it was their own stupid fault somehow. How far we have come from when the roads were considered public thoroughfares, not private motor vehicle speedways. Glad to see there wasn’t any talk about the cyclist being in dark clothing, or not wearing a helmet, or of not obeying some rule designed to limit the number of people that motor vehicles kill. Oh, wait, everyone jumped on that last one.
Extraordinary piece of word dancing by the Waymo public relations spin doctors: Fundamentally, this piece of engineering was moving faster than was safe. It knows its braking distances: Why is it driving into a blind situation (ie behind a truck) faster than it can brake if there were something unknown there?
Oh it was Mississippi St, sorry! That is a four-way stop. Sounds like the cyclist ran the stop sign behind the truck, but still no excuse for the Waymo to collide with them.
Hitting cyclists, dragging pedestrians down the street. Wow, they really are getting to be like human drivers.
Should the title for this article not be “Cyclist strikes Waymo driverless car at 17th and Mississippi”? I’d be very surprised that if the truth wasn’t that the cyclist illegally blew the stop sign and failed to yield to the Waymo, hence legally the cyclist would be the one at fault for causing the collision. The video will be telling and should be shared. Was the cyclist cited for failure to yield?
Having grumped about this before, kudos and thanks for the last paragraph that notes the number of deaths involving human drivers last year. I wish Supervisor Walton was as concerned about those deaths as this non-requiring-hospitalization injury.
It will be interesting to compare how Waymo handles this with how Cruise handled their (company-ending?) dragging incident. I can imagine ways to share a *lot* of data from the cameras and sensors with media and regulators, or of course they could share just what’s legally mandated (which is horrifyingly little).
I suspect that you are not as innumerate as your statement reflects. The annual total of robot-driver miles logged is a rounding error on the annual total of human-driver miles logged. When the inevitable first robot car-on-human death in SF occurs, robot-caused fatalities as a % of robot miles logged will be much larger than the 25 deaths/per human driver miles logged.
thanks for the balanced story. like so much in sf these days, events are often seen through very one-sided lenses. the biggest problem with transit safety is drivers—drivers not signaling, drivers speeding, drivers making illegal u-turns. the idea of vision zero has been obliterated by this behavior, along with distractions like huge displays in cars and cell phones. I have mixed feelings about autonomous vehicles. they could eliminate many of the above listed issues. in this case, it seems like waymo alerted 911 immediately. meanwhile, the cruise incident was a complete meltdown. I hope we see a followup about this incident—what exactly happened? bicycles often cross intersections simultaneously with vehicles, often just a little behind for safety. I assume the waymo would be expecting this. I look forward to the video release.
“Despite criticism of autonomous vehicles, none have — as yet — been involved in a death in San Francisco. Meanwhile, the city saw 25 traffic deaths last year caused by human drivers.” LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK. I was eating at Dosa Corner the other week when I saw a car screech down Valencia and run the red light turning onto 26th. I feel infinitely safer as a pedestrian with Waymos than human drivers.
If you follow them for a while on a bike, you’ll feel a lot less safe. They drive super weird and irritate other drivers, often rightly so, with their strange behavior. When they decide to stop for some unseen reason, or just get stuck, drivers start going around them and it gets chaotic.
Unfortunate incident that highlights several issues:
17th st is a primary cycle route and should not have stop signs every block. Whether you agree or not, the on the ground situation is cyclists will run the stop signs anyways and cars yield to them. Legalize it and end the dangerous confusion that causes incidents like this.
Second is that waymos accerlerate far too quickly. Hard to believe a car wouldn’t have time to stop in this situation unless they were basically flooring it as soon as soon as there was an inch of space to clear the truck
Sounds like there is more to this story. I would like to know if the cyclist was obeying the rules of the road and stopped at the stop sign. For him to get hit by the Waymo, he must have been moving relativity quickly through that intersection implying that he did not stop. I would like to see the Waymo video that the car recorded.
The intersection is a 4-way stop. So, I think legally, the cyclist should have stopped and yielded, rather than be right behind the truck. And yes, we need more details. Was the cyclist in the bike lane or the road? And who was turning– the waymo? the cyclists? both? neither?
I’ll add, in my experience, cars shouldn’t expect all bikes to stop at stop signs. Some are going to blow by stop signs.
And, conversely, if you ride a bicycle, you should know that following all the rules will not always keep you alive. Try to be aware (if you can) when you are doing something that a driver might not notice.
My friend.
You are not allowed to drive a car until it is safe. If there is a cyclist in your path, it is not safe.
Yes my guess is that the cyclist was “slipstreaming” behind the truck.
@MTN – There’s really no way to know from the carefully-worded press release. Surmise is not helpful.
I agree with you. Sounds like the cyclist didn’t stop at the stop sign—what a surprise! Never saw that happen in SF.
Waymo says it “applied heavy breaking”. How fast could it have been going while pulling into an intersection after a complete stop?