US federal regulators have asked for more information from Zoox, Amazon’s self-driving unit, as part of an investigation into rear-end collision risks arising from unexpected braking.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) opened one preliminary investigation at Zoox on May 10 after receiving two reports of Zoox vehicles braking unexpectedly, resulting in rear-end collisions with motorcyclists resulting in minor injuries. Zoox is licensed by California Department of Motor Vehicles to test drive its vehicles without a safety driver in Foster City and parts of San Francisco.
On Thursday, the agency gave Zoox until July 12 to send more information to help its investigation. The letter detailed a list of 13 requests for information, including the number of miles driven on public roads with self-driving software in use by geographic region. the number of AV-commanded hard braking events with and without human onboard supervision; a list and summary of braking events; a detailed timeline of events starting 30 seconds before each event; and video transcripts, graphical renderings of measured trajectories and predicted paths for each road user and other data starting 30 seconds before each incident.
NHTSA already confirmed through an initial investigation into both incidents that each of Zoox’s Toyota Highlanders was running the company’s autonomous vehicle software involved in the moments leading up to the crashes.
In a letter from NHTSA’s Office of Injury Investigation (ODI) dated May 30, the agency said that in both reported incidents, the Zoox vehicles applied the brakes in response to another road user who was not directly in front of them.
“ODI is concerned that vehicles exhibiting unexpected rapid braking may increase the risk of collision, property damage and injury,” the letter said. “The risk is particularly acute for road users behind Zoox vehicles who are unable to reasonably anticipate or react to unexpected sudden braking.”
The research will evaluate the performance of Zoox’s automated driving system, as well as its behavior at pedestrian crossings around vulnerable road users and other similar rear-end collision scenarios.
The two incidents that led to this investigation involved motorcyclists, who often follow closely behind cars and split lanes. NHTSA’s action in this case may be a sign of increased scrutiny of autonomous vehicle companies after GM’s Cruise lost its licenses to operate in California after withholding information about an incident that resulted in a Cruise robotaxi running over and running over a pedestrian for 20 feet.
The feds are also investigating Alphabet’s Waymo after receiving a total of 31 reports of its robotaxis making unexpected moves that led to accidents and possibly violating traffic safety laws.
