HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — Days after an autonomous vehicle service started in Houston, Austin first responders took questions about images showing a driverless car blocking personnel near a mass shooting situation.
After a mass shooting broke out in Austin, a bystander shot images of a driverless vehicle near the scene and shared it to Facebook. The Waymo vehicle was surrounded by flashing lights.
It blocked the road for more than a minute. In the video, an ambulance turned around.
An officer got into the vehicle and was heard telling the operator the car needed to move because there was an active shooter situation. On Monday, Austin first responders were questioned about the video.
“I will say that we’re already in touch with Waymo and the autonomous vehicles to give them our concerns and work with them to try to address this moving forward,” Austin-Travis County EMS Chief Robert Luckritz explained.
Waymo isn’t just in Austin. Less than a week ago, it officially started taking passengers around Houston.
The driverless taxi service only goes to certain parts of Houston. The company sent a statement last week about the new Houston service, but wouldn’t send ABC13 one on Monday regarding what happened in Austin.
On its website, the company says it trains first responders to handle incidents. We asked Waymo how many are trained in Houston.
ABC13 received no response. HPD and HFD also wouldn’t say anything about what happened in Austin with the Waymo car.
In Waymo’s new release about starting in Houston, Council Member Sallie Alcorn was quoted saying she was a big fan of the service and was thrilled to see the cars operating in Houston. On Monday, Eyewitness News contacted her chief of staff about the Austin incident, but received no response.
While responders in Austin work with the company to address what happened, first responders say other emergency vehicles reached the victims.
“We were on scene within 57 seconds,” Luckrtiz explained. “In the grand scheme of overall incidents, we don’t believe it had any impact on patient outcomes.”
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