By Greg Tasker
Despite a spate of well-publicized incidents of Arizonians attacking self-driving minivans on the streets of Chandler, a Phoenix suburb, the community has been more welcoming than not to Waymo’s autonomous vehicle testing.
“There have been incidents, but they’ve been very isolated,” said Matt Burdick, communications director for the city of Chandler, a sprawling community of about 250,000 people, southeast of Phoenix. “There have been concerns but, for the most part, people are embracing them.”
Waymo, formerly known as Google Self-Driving Car Project, began testing autonomous Chrysler Pacifica minivans in Chandler in 2017. It launched a commercial ride-hailing service, Waymo One, to a select group of people in December.
The news coverage included accounts of an assailant slashing the tire of a Waymo minivan, while it was idling at an intersection. In other reports, people pelted the vehicles with rocks, and a few attempted to run them off the road.
There have been nearly two dozen incidents since Waymo arrived in Chandler, but most of them have involved minor collisions, such as fender-benders, Burdick said. There’s been only one accident in which a Waymo vehicle was cited; the minivan was being operated manually and the driver failed to yield the right-of-way while making a left turn.
“There are some folks who have had opposition to the technology, so you do encounter some of that,” Burdick said.
Some residents complained about seeing the vehicles repeatedly drive by their homes during initial testing. The vehicles, he said, were collecting data about the street network, important information for autonomous operation.
“Predominantly, the reaction has been positive. You see the vehicles all over the city,” he said.
Waymo, based in Mountain View, California, declined to comment on the Chandler incidents.
Reports of aggressiveness toward self-driving vehicles elsewhere are hard to come by.
In Ann Arbor, Michigan, where a self-driving shuttle is being tested on the North Campus of the University of Michigan, there haven’t been “any extreme reactions,” said Susan Carney, a spokeswoman for Mcity, the university’s autonomous and connected vehicle testing center.
“Generally speaking, I’d say the campus community has been curious and interested,” she said.
Chandler’s Burdick said the community is overwhelmingly interested in the new technology and what it means for the future.
“When Waymo first came in, they had an open house. Thousands of people attended. Most of the sentiment was curiosity,” he said, noting Waymo worked diligently with the city to address a wide range of safety concerns.
When Waymo began soliciting applications for its Early Rider program, more than 20,000 people applied, he said. A limited number of people were selected to test the self-driving vehicles for personal trips and provide feedback to WaymoDriverD.
Self-driving minivans aren’t the only sign of the future in Chandler.
The city revised its zoning law to allow developers to curtail the number of required parking spaces if they provide drop-off/pickup space for ridesharing, including autonomous vehicles. Less parking means more room for other amenities, such as parks. The city also is studying the possibility of an autonomous shuttle from its downtown as a link to light rail in another city.
“It’s a changing world,” Burdick said.
