Waymo, the self-driving concern of Google’s parent company Alphabet, was recently granted permission to test fully driverless cars on public roads in California. It first did this in Arizona late last year. What that meant was that Waymo self-driving cars could be tested on public roads even without a safety driver behind the wheel. According to a report, Waymo has now brought back safety drivers for its autonomous cars after a couple of incidents.
According to The Information, Waymo is putting in place additional safety measures for its self-driving fleet by installing cameras to monitor driver fatigue. It’s also bringing back human safety drivers behind the wheel. This decision was reportedly made after a couple of recent traffic incidents.
Not only has it brought safety drivers back to vehicles that have been operating without them, it now has co-drivers in the cars on both daytime and night time shifts. It’s one of the ways that the company is aiming to keep safety drivers behind the wheel alert. It’s also reportedly installing cameras that are aimed at drivers’ faces to monitor if they might be dozing off while the car does its thing.
Previous reports have suggested that Waymo wants to launch its self-driving taxi service in Phoenix as early as December this year. This report about additional security precautions that it’s taking hints that this may not happen, at least not as soon as previously expected.
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