"Mawakana said a "safety-first" approach is deeply ingrained in the company culture. "I've been at the company eight and a half years and, for a very long time, it's been very clear: Anyone can raise their hand and say, 'Wait a minute, I don't understand this,'" the co-CEO said. "That's something we all take very seriously, and you can't go back and build that.""
"Mawakana pointed to the case of Waymo cars blocking emergency vehicles, which have been documented on social media. "We've done tests and tests and tests with emergency vehicles, sirens, and [whether] we can hear them. Do we understand what's happening? And yet, we found ourselves blocking some emergency vehicles, and that's not OK, right?" she said. "That's something where we had to pull back and really focus on it.""
Waymo views scaling its robotaxi operations as imperative while insisting safety remains the primary constraint on deployment. The company applies a consistent safety framework and routinely pauses or pulls back deployments when conditions fail to meet that standard. A safety-first culture empowers any employee to raise concerns at any time, reinforcing operational caution. Tests revealed instances where Waymo vehicles blocked emergency responders, which triggered targeted pullbacks and remediation efforts. Waymo also publishes safety reports claiming substantial reductions in crash rates for its self-driving technology.
Read at Business Insider
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