DENVER — While vendors were setting up for the South Pearl Street Farmers Market over the weekend, a Waymo drove through the closed-off street. This moment was caught on camera, with several community members voicing concerns over the self-driving cars in the Mile High.
Comment on social media range from "Waymo still has some work to do" to "How is this even safe???" to "Waymo so dangerous." Fortunately, no one was injured and the car can be seen navigating through the vendors to exit the road.
Denver7 reporter Maggy Wolanske has more from the community reaction after the incident in the video below:
Nicole Jarman is in her 20th season of managing the South Pearl Street Farmers Market. Over the years, she has seen change, including this past weekend when a Waymo drove into the street while vendors were setting up.
"So from South Washington, [it] came down the street. Our barricades are moved to the side during setup because the traffic is coming in with vendors and it just joined like it was a vendor. It just like, came on the street, followed actually, vendor traffic flow perfectly," Jarman said.
She said the Waymo "wasn't recklessly driving" and did not cause a concern, rather brought up questions on how to react in this situation.
"We since received a call from the city this morning," said Jarman. They're going to reach out to their contact through DOTI, which is the Department of Transportation [and Infrastructure] to Waymo, and say if this happens, 'What do we do?' There's obviously not a person in the car, so what do you do? How do you communicate with the Waymo?"
Denver7 was sent the following statement from Waymo, “The trust and safety of the community is our top priority. We are dedicated to learning from this situation as we continue improving road safety in the cities we serve.”
Steve Beaty, a professor of computer sciences at MSU Denver, said he looked into the stats of Waymo and found the self-driving cars to be "way better, if you will, than we are." When it comes to new technologies, he explained people have to understand what goes wrong and work around it.
"If you go back to the rise of the airplanes and automobiles, originally, they were much less safe than they are now," said Beaty. "So, it takes a certain amount of time to understand all of what we call the 'failure modes,' what can go wrong in order to work around those to make sure that those do not happen."
In this situation, Beaty explained the car was doing what it was programmed to do and the challenging element here is if it is completely safe.
"I was shocked from the point of view that it was unexpected, and on the other hand, it's not, you know, it's never going to be 100%. Nothing is 100%. Human beings aren't 100% and so yeah, disturbing, shocking," Beaty said. "I'm glad again, very relieved after seeing the video that nobody was hurt and so I really understands people's concerns."
This "new vendor" on Sunday has accelerated a conversation around Waymo's and public safety. For Jarman, she laughed, saying she learned something new from this weekend and "my job would be boring otherwise."
