A San Francisco street-outreach worker’s hand was injured after an autonomous Zoox vehicles struck his car in the Mission District on Saturday afternoon, according to the worker’s manager.
Jamel Durden, a 30-something street ambassador with the group Ahsing Solutions who regularly patrols the streets of the Mission, was ending his break around 1:30 p.m. on Saturday and exiting his 1977 Cadillac Coupe DeVille when a Zoox robotaxi struck the driver’s side door.
Durden, who was trying to open the door, had his hand smashed as the Zoox struck his car near 15th and Mission streets, according to his manager, Terraine Miller, who said Durden relayed to him what happened.
Durden declined to answer questions.
Zoox confirmed the collision in a statement on Sunday. The company wrote that “a robotaxi was traveling straight on 15th Street when the driver of a parked vehicle suddenly opened their door into the path of the robotaxi.”
“The robotaxi identified the opening door and tried to avoid it, but contact was unavoidable,” the company wrote. “Following the incident between the two vehicles, Zoox followed all standard safety protocols including offering medical attention if necessary, which the individual declined.”
The company said it will share video of the incident with regulators, but would not release it publicly. The Zoox did not strike Durden, the company said.
Paramedics who arrived on scene looked over Durden, Miller said, but he declined their offer to take him to the hospital. He did not want to leave his damaged car unattended.
After a tow truck took the Cadillac, Durden sought medical attention. Besides the smashed hand, he suffered from neck and back pain, Miller said.
Photos from the scene show Durden’s blue-purple Cadillac with its door dented in and its window smashed. Broken glass littered the street.
The Zoox autonomous car — which is a carriage-style vehicle with doors that slide open — was also damaged: Its glass doors were cracked, and a long scrape ran across the bottom of the vehicle.
The company began offering rides in San Francisco last November, and its vehicles have become a common sight on city streets.
This piece was updated on Jan. 18, 2026, with a statement from Zoox.
The subtle implication, because of how the article is written, is that the Zoox vehicle was at fault. In reality, if read closely, the driver of the car threw open his door without looking to see if a vehicle was about to pass from behind. California law says you are supposed to look before opening the door. I face this all the time as a cyclist. I’ve been doored twice, despite my efforts to avoid it, because someone opened their door before I had time to stop—not to mention the numerous times I was able to stop, but just barely. I used to be against the Waymo cars, but after several years of observing them I now see that they obey the rules of the road better than human drivers. I’ve never seen a Waymo car blow through a red light, go too fast, drive recklessly, drive without lights at night, do illegal turns, swerve lanes like crazy, nearly sideswipe me on my bike, be more into its phone than on driving, let alone scream and curse at me.
Sucks to be doored. Always ride around 5′ or more from the edge of parked cars, even if it means you’re in the car lane. State law allows this.
Interesting outlook. I do not ride a bike but if I did then, given the choice of hitting a door opening at 5 mph, and hitting passing traffic at 30 mph, I think I’d choose the former.
Sadly, what happens sometimes when people are doored is that they fall into the path of moving traffic and get run over. There have been a few deaths that way in the past decade. Way better and safer to just not ride in the door zone, period. Ideally, drivers would learn to look to see if anyone is coming before opening their doors, but I still see people throw open their doors into traffic.
In California, it’s illegal and dangerous to open a car door into traffic if it isn’t “reasonably safe” and interferes with moving vehicles, a rule outlined in Vehicle Code 22517, making the door opener liable for accidents, especially with cyclists, who often get hit in the “door zone” and suffer severe injuries from these “dooring” incidents.
False. He was opening his car door, not closing it.
Sounds like this would’ve happened whether this was a driverless car or a human one. Common sense demands that you should always look before opening your car door…
Yes it may have happened regardless of whether it was a driverless car or a human one. But the fact is, an accident happened because an empty car was driving around the city. WHY do we need empty *PRIVATE* cars driving around the city?
Where are the anti car ppl on this one? If a car with a person inside is a problem, please tell me what conceivable purpose is served by an empty car driving around in circles?
I am as anti-robotaxi as any anti-car car owner can be. Ubers and Lyft increased city traffic by 30%. I sometimes work at night and being stuck behind a line of empty robo-taxis at midnight is particularly galling.
*But* us anti-people should not spread a poorly worded story that implies the robot was at fault. Human error in this case and cat error in the Waymo’s case.
The robotaxi was absolutely at fault! To cause that kind of damage, it had to have been driving way too fast, way too close to the parked car.
Are you also against taxis or Ubers driving around without passengers? How else are taxis, Ubers, or robotaxis supposed to get to passengers?
@Mike – We shouldn’t make it a priority for gig-economy scab cabs to get passengers, they mostly take riders away from far more ecologically-responsible public transit. We are, after all, a voter-mandated transit-first city.
Deadheading inevitably means wasted fuel, more pollution, and wear and tear on our streets. In the case of taxis, that’s why they capped the number (albeit with a problematic medallion system), and had dispatching by human beings motivated to minimize deadheading.
When Uber/Lyft came along, they promised they had super whiz-bang AI dispatching but that was just hype. Since drivers take the hit in fewer passengers and wear and tear on their cars, and Uber/Lyft don’t have to pay for the wear and tear on the roads or the costs of added congestion, they have no incentive to do better. Their inferior dispatching leaves cars deadheading 50% of the time.
A lack of openness and accountability leaves us not knowing how often robotaxis are deadheading, but they’ve been racking up miles “training” on our streets for years.
If you open your car door and anyone or anything hits it, it’s your fault. State law. Doesn’t matter if you open your door and it’s a driverless car, a regular car, a cyclist, a scooter user, or a police horse. Check before you open your door.
Who exactly is at fault? This is from the above article. Looks like somebody owes Zoox a bunch of money for the damage they did to the Zoox vechile.
“Zoox confirmed the collision in a statement on Sunday. The company wrote that “a robotaxi was traveling straight on 15th Street when the driver of a parked vehicle suddenly opened their door into the path of the robotaxi.””
I was just thinking the same thing. The Zoox got doored.
Subtract “Zoox” and add “bike” or “personal vehicle” and it is much clearer that someone got doored.
Who was at fault here, the driver or the Zoox? Who knows? Without seeing the video of the incident it is impossible to determine. But one thing is easily determinable: this policy of the autonomous car companies not sharing videos of collisions/accidents is unacceptable. This is a new technology, people are concerned about the safety of the vehicles. For these companies to hide information that our society can use to make informed decisions about their product is complete b.s.
It’s the person who opened their car door. It’s basically always the fault of the person who opens a door if it is struck by someone or something in the street.
“California Vehicle Code § 22517 states that no person shall open the door of a vehicle on the side available to moving traffic unless it is reasonably safe to do so and can be done without interfering with the movement of traffic.”
I love autonomous vehicles. I think people hating on them will be remembered as ludites.
I wish they were perfectly safe. I wish every time they hit a “beloved cat” or a street “ambassador” it wasn’t national news.
There was a Nepalese man killed by a hit and run and it was no big deal because there was a human driver.
luddites were proto-marxists, my friend, fighting technologies deployed by the powerful that would destroy their livelihoods.
Alex —
“Luddite” has two d’s, champ.
The Nepalese man had a name, Binod Budhathoki. Mission Local wrote about his death and wrote about the arrest of the woman accused of running him down.
I’m not sure about the point you’re trying to make here. Are you?
Best,
JE
When the first robotaxies showed up a few years ago, the vision we were sold was how this was going to be so much safer than humans driving. Now, as the robotaxies are being scaled up across the city, it’s become obvious that this promise doesn’t pass the smell test. And this isn’t even counting Cruise, which were flat out unfit to the plain eye given how they were darting and flailing around.
“Safer than human drivers” does not imply zero accidents.
Just fewer accidents per vehicle-mile than a human driver.
kron4.com/news/california/child-struck-injured-by-waymo-autonomous-car-in-california/
These companies routinely lie, it’s part of their business model.
Safety is a by-product but was never the goal of these rent-seeking, fascist-friendly companies that have flooded our streets.
Safety is only really a number one priority for air travel. Which is why it is operated only by professionals, held to exacting standards.
For vehicular traffic, safety is lower in voter priorities than convenience. Autonomous vehicles are clearly safer but there are vested interests aligned against it, who then publicize every minor incident like this.
You don’t know that, and the data don’t show that.
A significant percentage of total robot mileage occurs in the middle of the night, when packs of bot cars drive around in circles when there’s little other vehicular or pedestrian traffic. A much higher percentage of meat mileage occurs during commute hours when most accidents occur.
Unless the data compare the same time periods, speed limits, conditions, and routes, it’s a deceptive if not outright meaningless statistic.
Does anyone wonder why herds of bot cars circle our streets in the middle of the night, when there’s little if any meaningful algorithmic data to collect wrt traffic patterns? Part of the answer is almost certainly in order to game the statistics and pull the wool over the eyes of the Great Innumerate American Citizen,
To be fair, most hit-and-runs occur during the middle of the night when there are no other cars on the road. So if the robo-taxis are able to not cause collisions during that time, they’re already doing better than the human drivers at that time of day.
If the recent gloating about the 2024 numbers are any indication, the latter are rapidly dropping, in the city at least. So the point of robotaxis and the ever elusive “self driving” seems to be getting smaller.
I think the robos rock,
I work the gutters and sometimes pick up things in particularly the bike lane and the autonomous vehicles are much more observant and respectful I’m here to tell you.
You would be too if you had 8 sets of eyes.
My dog and I pick up trash is what I’m saying and we have 2 blocks of 14th Street on our route about 5 or 6 blocks from the Robo Yards and I watch hundreds of them out my triple bay overlooking 14th and Valencia when Skippy and I aren’t out in it.
Restore the Caddy and toss in a full ten or twenty grand paint job.
Elect our Police Chief !!
h.
As the old adage goes, pimpin ain’t easy.
I had a ’78 Sedan DeVille, a one-owner from my great aunt. 425 ci, that thing purred like a kitten down the ol’ interstate. Great cars. Same Coupe as above was in Goodfellas (the pink one and Henry Hill’s ride).
CPUC and the DMV need to get all of these robots off the street. They’re clearly not safe.
Bad news about the caddy, worse news about the hand. Hope he makes a full recovery and gets a fat payday.