{"id":55589,"date":"2025-12-08T22:43:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T22:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/55589\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T22:43:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T22:43:07","slug":"waymo-is-testing-self-driving-cars-in-pittsburgh-heres-how-it-works","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/55589\/","title":{"rendered":"Waymo is testing self-driving cars in Pittsburgh. Here’s how it works."},"content":{"rendered":"

Amid tests of vehicles in Pittsburgh, questions are being raised about the safety of Waymo’s autonomous vehicle technology<\/a>\u00a0after school bus violations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Videos from around the country<\/a> show Waymo’s self-driving cars not stopping for school buses or stopping too late. Right now, the ride-hailing service is testing vehicles in Pittsburgh. The first phase of that is someone driving the cars around.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, there are a few more phases before it goes all by itself. According to PennDOT, certifications and safety plans are submitted for companies like Waymo.<\/p>\n

“We spent a lot of time, a good bit over a year, developing some guidelines for things they have to make sure they can do and prove to us that they can do,” PennDOT Transformational Technology Section Chief Derrick Herrmann said.<\/p>\n

With the school bus problems, Waymo says safety is its top priority, and no injuries have happened. It added that a software issue contributed to the incidents. The company, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, believes an update should address this, but it is continuing to investigate.<\/p>\n

PennDOT is watching how the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration investigation goes. Artificial intelligence advocates argue that they are still safer than human drivers.<\/p>\n

“They’re never distracted. They have to be right all the time. They always have to follow the rules of the road, and they have better vision. They have 360-degree vision,” AI Strike Team CEO Joanna Doven.<\/p>\n

PennDOT said there are seven other companies in the state right now using autonomous cars. Waymo stressed its safety record to calm any fears of self-driving cars.<\/p>\n

“As we get closer to that commercial operation and whenever they launch that in Philadelphia, it’s going to be a really good lesson for us, but I think we’ve done a ton of prep to try to be ready for this,” Herrmann said.<\/p>\n

Right now, there is no timeline on when the cars will go full autonomous in the Pittsburgh region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Amid tests of vehicles in Pittsburgh, questions are being raised about the safety of Waymo’s autonomous vehicle technology\u00a0after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55590,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74,29160,29133],"class_list":{"0":"post-55589","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh","8":"tag-pittsburgh","9":"tag-pittsburgh-headlines","10":"tag-pittsburgh-news","11":"tag-self-driving","12":"tag-waymo"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}