Waymo attacks, GM rollout
Reports of passengers trapped or attacked in Waymo cars have surfaced in San Francisco and LA even as GM has deployed 200 driverless vehicles in California and Michigan — a reminder that AV scale‑up combines technical rollout with public‑safety and acceptance challenges. Operators argue AVs will create new jobs, but real‑world friction (anti‑robot attacks, exploited safety logic) is testing deployment resilience. (indianexpress.com, autoweek.com)
A San Francisco rider identified as Doug Fulop says a January episode lasted about six minutes while a man pounded the windows and shouted death threats at the three occupants before the Waymo finally drove off when the attacker moved away. (hoodline.com)) Waymo told the passengers it would not remotely drive the vehicle away if someone was standing nearby, the car’s software does not allow riders to take manual control, and the passengers called both 911 and Waymo’s support line during the incident. (hoodline.com)) Reporting traces a pattern: in 2024 vandals covered sensors to freeze cars, spray‑painted robotaxis that trapped riders, and one empty Waymo in Chinatown had its windows smashed and a lit firework thrown inside. (hoodline.com)) Waymo’s published safety research and peer‑reviewed analyses report large crash‑rate reductions—Waymo’s Safety Impact updates cite roughly a 90% reduction in suspected‑serious‑injury crashes versus human benchmarks across tens of millions of autonomous miles in studies accepted for Traffic Injury Prevention. (waymo.com)) General Motors began supervised public‑road testing on March 23, 2026, deploying more than 200 supervised development vehicles on limited‑access highways in California and Michigan with trained test drivers able to take manual control. (news.gm.com)) GM says the new program will feed a next‑generation “eyes‑off” driving system scheduled to begin rolling out in 2028 on the Escalade IQ and then expand from highways to driveway‑to‑driveway applications. (news.gm.com)) GM’s announcement cites existing data assets—Super Cruise’s ~800 million customer miles and Cruise’s ~5 million autonomous miles—and a simulation environment the company says can emulate roughly 100 years of human driving every day to stress‑test corner cases. (news.gm.com))
