Two Waymo autonomous vehicles crashed into a pickup truck that was being towed in Phoenix in December 2023, prompting the company's first voluntary software recall after the system incorrectly predicted the future motion of the towed vehicle, according to TechCrunch. Waymo's chief safety officer Mauricio Peña said neither vehicle was carrying passengers at the time, and the company deployed a validated software fix to its entire fleet by January 12, 2024.
Operator takeaway
Your truck towing a vehicle on a public road is the edge case that autonomous driving software has already failed to handle — run dashcams on every rig, because if an AV hits your tow, the footage is your only counter to a tech company's legal team.