NBC Bay Area – SF mayor promises accountability after school crossing guards tell NBC Bay Area driverless cars almost hit them

See original article by Bigad Shaban, Michael Bott, Jeremy Carroll and Michael Horn at NBC

A recent NBC Bay Area investigation revealed crossing guards stationed at different schools across San Francisco said they were nearly hit by Waymo driverless cars while guiding children and their families along crosswalks

San Francisco city officials plan to meet with leaders at the driverless car company Waymo next month to address safety concerns highlighted in a recent NBC Bay Area investigation, which revealed possible hazards posed by the company’s fleet of self-driving vehicles.

“Of course, it concerns me,” San Francisco Mayor London Breed told NBC Bay Area. “We are doing everything we can within our authority to hold them accountable.”

City leaders vow to take action following NBC Bay Area investigation

Mayor London Breed has a new warning for driverless car companies. It comes after NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit found serious hazards involving the high-tech cars. NBC Bay Area’s Raj Mathai spoke to Senior Investigative Reporter Bigad Shaban for some insight.

In May, NBC Bay Area surveyed 30 school crossing guards stationed at more than 20 different schools across San Francisco and found nearly 25% reported being nearly hit by a Waymo driverless car, over the past year, while guiding families along crosswalks.

“I viewed your report as a wakeup call,” said Joel Kamisher, the union representative for San Francisco’s more than 170 school crossing guards employed by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. “One of these near misses could turn into somebody actually being hurt.”

Joel Kamisher, the union representative for San Francisco’s roughly 170 school crossing guards, has been helping students and their families safely navigate busy intersections for the past seven years.

Officials with the SFMTA and mayor’s office said city leaders plan to raise the crossing guards’ concerns in a meeting with Waymo’s policy team in mid August. Waymo, Google’s sister company, is one of three fleets permitted to operate driverless cars in San Francisco without a safety operator sitting in the front seat, according to the California DMV. While Waymo owns the vast majority of self-driving vehicles in the city, its longtime competitor, Cruise, has remained off the road ever since California regulators revoked its permit last October, citing an “unreasonable risk to public safety.”

Each of the near misses recalled by crossing guards in NBC Bay Area’s survey involved a driverless vehicle operated by Waymo.

After school crossing guards voiced safety concerns about autonomous vehicles nearly hitting them, San Francisco now plans to offer crossing guards new training geared towards self-driving cars.

Driverless car companies aren’t required to disclose “close calls”

“The autonomous vehicle companies have been pretty good about working with us on certain things, but not necessarily with providing us the kind of data we need to understand exactly the kinds of incidents that you are talking about,” Breed told NBC Bay Area.

Federal and state regulators require autonomous vehicle companies to disclose details involving collisions, however, there is no requirement to divulge near misses, such as those described by school crossing guards in the recent NBC Bay Area report.

Currently, state and federal regulators largely dictate the rules governing autonomous vehicles, however, Breed said she supported a state-wide effort to give individual cities the power to write their own regulations relating to self-driving vehicles. The legislation, Senate Bill 915, was met with strong opposition from the driverless car industry, which warned such a change could lead to a chaotic patch-work of transportation laws that could hinder innovation. Despite garnering support during initial votes in the legislature, the bill ultimately died last month.

Waymo isn’t commenting on frequency of near misses

NBC Bay Area asked Waymo to disclose details about the frequency of close calls involving its driverless fleet, but the company declined to respond.

While self-driving car companies are allowed to keep their near misses secret, NBC Bay Area was able to locate somewhat of a partial paper trail by obtaining all complaint records submitted to the California Department of Motor Vehicles last year.

Of the more than 200 complaints, roughly 30% detailed safety concerns in crosswalks. Of those, about one in five complaints involved Waymo. The bulk of the rest centered on Cruise, which has said safety is a “critical priority,” and added it “investigates concerns.”

Driverless car complaints submitted to DMV detail eerily similar safety concerns

“We had to hit the car with our hand,” said one complainant, describing an interaction in a crosswalk with a Cruise autonomous vehicle. “I’ve almost been hit,” another person wrote in reference to a Waymo driverless vehicle.

School crossing guard Theresa Dorn told NBC Bay Area she was nearly by a driverless Waymo vehicle on three separate occasions while guiding children and their families through the crosswalk.

“I just don’t think it’s very safe,” Dorn said. “[The cars] did not recognize me in the intersection.”

An NBC Bay Area Investigation is raising new safety questions about driverless cars and their ability to recognize and avoid people in crosswalks. One member of Congress is calling our findings “concerning,” and is now calling for action. Senior Investigative Reporter Bigad Shaban explains why.

When questioned about the survey results, Waymo said without specific details involving the locations and dates of the incidents, it was unable to offer explanations as to what its cars may have done or why.

NBC Bay Area invited Waymo officials to meet at an actual crosswalk to clarify how its driverless cars are programmed to respond to crossing pedestrians and bicyclists, but the company declined to be interviewed.

“Our system is designed to give pedestrians time and space to safely and comfortably move, reassuring them that they don’t need to rush, whenever possible,” a Waymo spokesperson wrote in a statement. “We’ve designed our system that way to take into account safety, courtesy, and a detailed understanding of the law.”

Federal transportation records show Waymo’s driverless fleet has been involved in more than 300 collisions, nationally, over the past three years. Based on descriptions of the accidents Waymo submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, it appears many of the incidents were the fault of other vehicles involved, which were driven by humans. At least 24 of the crashes involved injuries, according to data from NHTSA.

Waymo has repeatedly said it is proud of its performance and safety record. Last year, Waymo’s own analysis of crash and injury rates found its driverless fleet of vehicles “significantly outperformed” that of human drivers. Transportation experts, however, warn it is still too early to draw comparisons since autonomous vehicles drive less than one percent of the total miles driven by humans each year. Annually, drivers log more than 3 trillion miles on U.S. roadways, according to the U.S. Dept. of Transportation. Waymo’s self-driving vehicles have driven more than 20 million miles since the company began dispatching driverless cars in March 2019.

While some crossing guards reported frightening experiences with driverless cars, others told NBC Bay Area they have found the high-tech vehicles to be more capable drivers than their human counterparts.

“I’ve almost been hit by parents, not driverless cars,” one crossing guard said.

Another added, “they stop better than people.”

Still, the novel technology has some San Francisco parents, like Jessica Torres, feeling nervous.

“[Crossing guards] are the ones keeping our kids safe,” Torres said. “So if they don’t feel safe with these cars, I, as a parent, don’t feel safe.”

As a bus driver, Torres said she is worried about an overreliance on technology.

“There’s some things that you can cut corners on, like self-checkout,” Torres said. “Not transit … people could die.”

San Francisco school district mum on what it’s doing to address crossing guards’ safety concerns

Whether officials with the San Francisco Unified School District agree with those concerns is unclear.

NBC Bay Area requested to speak with the district’s superintendent, Dr. Matt Wayne, but his office declined the interview request.

Dr. Matt Wayne, Superintendent of the San Francisco Unified School District, and his office declined NBC Bay Area’s interview request and did not disclose whether the district made any effort to reach out to Waymo in response to the ongoing safety concerns voiced by crossing guards stationed at different public schools across the city.

In a statement, a school district spokesperson wrote, “student safety is our number one priority,” however the district would not disclose whether it ever contacted Waymo to address the ongoing concerns from crossing guards.

“I feel like they should definitely do something about it now before something happens,” Torres said. “Somebody needs to be in control.”

Watch our entire investigative series