When it looked like self-driving cars were about to go to level 5, fully autonomous driving level in which it is not necessary for a person to be inside, in recent weeks and months we have seen how it seems that this level of driving is still far from being achieved and although it is not always the fault of the driving system.
A vehicle of Uber was the first involved in a fatal hit-and-run, which forced the company to remove all vehicles of the different states in which I was testing. Tesla has also been involved in a fatal accident, due this time to a misinterpretation of the road. And since there are not two without three, now it is the turn of Waymo, Google's autonomous car subsidiary.
The accident occurred in Chandler County at noon on Friday and involved a vehicle from the manufacturer Honda and a Chrysler Pacifica minivan from Waymo. According to the first results of the investigation, which is still ongoing, Google's vehicle was not at fault, since it was the other vehicle that jumped on him while trying to avoid an accident at the intersection he just crossed and which resulted in the Honda eventually invading the opposite lane, hitting the autonomous vehicle.
Being a level 4 autonomous driving vehicle, inside was a driver who could not avoid the accident, driver who got out of the accident unharmed, as was the driver of the other vehicle involved in the accident.
When an autonomous vehicle is involved, this case falls under the jurisdiction of federal authorities, as happened both with the first fatal run-over by Uber and the last accident involving a Tesla, a vehicle that has a practically autonomous driving assistant but requires the driver's supervision at all times, something that some of the owners of these vehicles do not quite understand.