Two well-known companies, General Motors GM and Google GOOGL, have been approved to introduce self-driving taxis to the bay area via Waymo, a self-driving technology firm based in Mountain View, California. The self-driving taxi service, Waymo One, got its start in suburban Phoenix, but has since spread to practically the entire city's downtown and metropolitan areas, as well as San Francisco, and soon Los Angeles. Waymo issues an annual safety report based on its vehicle performance statistics and verified best-practice tools and research, plus shares data with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), confirming its commitment to car safety transparency.
According to the firm, there were no recorded injuries and only two collisions in one million miles of rider-only operations on public highways, notably in Arizona and California. The evidence speaks for itself. Furthermore, most of these events were caused by other drivers, while the Waymo vehicles were either stationary or completing a parking move. In a busy city like San Francisco, this will surely be a game changer, but there will surely be ‘humps’ in the road as recently, one autonomous vehicle has already caused a traffic jam. The vehicle malfunctioned near a busy strip of San Francisco bars causing many to be left waiting. This could signify growing pains as Waymo increases its efficiencies following every trip it completes. Be on the lookout for this partnership to elevate both GM and Google if deemed successful as they attempt to infiltrate populated cities.
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