US Opens Safety Probe into Self-Driving Car Incidents

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has launched an investigation into a series of crashes involving autonomous vehicles made by startup Avride, examining whether the vehicles' behavior poses a risk to road safety and whether their systems display overconfident driving.

According to the NHTSA, the vehicles have in some cases swerved into oncoming lanes, failed to stop or slow before obstacles and collided with stationary objects or other vehicles. The 16 recorded incidents caused property damage in several cases and resulted in at least one minor injury.

Several of the crashes occurred in Dallas, where Avride has operated an autonomous ride-hailing service through the Uber platform since December. The company uses Hyundai Ioniq 5 vehicles and said last month that its fleet numbers around 200 cars.

Avride said it is cooperating with authorities to explain its safety protocols and technology. The company said a trained safety operator was present in the vehicle in all incidents and that many situations were caused by other road users. It added that it had taken technical and operational measures following each incident.

(reuters, max)