The speedy scaling of robotaxis during the last two years has include a hidden human value.
Check drivers for Waymo and Zoox sustained greater than two dozen accidents in 2024 and 2025 from laborious braking or different sudden actions made by the autonomous automobiles, in accordance with a TechCrunch overview of information submitted to the Occupational Security and Well being Administration.
These take a look at drivers, who put autonomous automobiles by their paces on public roads, have suffered sprains, strains, whiplash, and extra, in accordance with OSHA knowledge and interviews with former and present employees. Some have been sidelined for weeks or months.
Transdev, which employs and manages Waymo’s take a look at drivers, reported 16 accidents tied to Waymo depot places in three cities that had been attributable to the autonomous software program braking laborious or swerving out of the blue. Zoox reported as many as eight employee accidents linked to laborious braking.
Different autonomous car firms don’t seem within the dataset, although it’s attainable they’re exempt. The Zoox and Waymo accidents seem as a result of the businesses classify themselves as taxi, limo, or transit providers, which OSHA topics to larger disclosure as a result of they’re “higher-hazard” industries. OSHA additionally solely requires institutions with 100 or extra workers in these industries to make this data public, that means take a look at drivers in newer cities the place operations haven’t scaled could have been injured on the job with out showing on this dataset.
TechCrunch was unable to study whether or not Waymo or Transdev logged any new accidents in 2026. OSHA doesn’t require firms to submit annual knowledge till the next yr as a part of the company’s Injury Tracking Application.
In Zoox’s case, accidents are nonetheless occurring, in accordance with sources who spoke to TechCrunch on situation of anonymity.
Two present and three former Zoox contractors advised TechCrunch that the corporate’s take a look at fleet automobiles — modified Toyota Highlander SUVs geared up with its self-driving system — had been nonetheless braking laborious and abruptly as not too long ago as July. Three of these contractors stated employees are nonetheless getting damage. The employees had been granted anonymity to debate personal operations.
Zoox declined to reply particular questions concerning the accidents it reported final yr or the claims contractors made to TechCrunch concerning the continued hard-braking points. The corporate stated it follows needed reporting necessities and takes accidents significantly.
Zoox additionally stated hard-braking incidents are generally unavoidable and that the accidents reported final yr characterize a small share of the thousands and thousands of miles its take a look at fleet traveled.
Waymo additionally declined to reply questions concerning the accidents reported to OSHA.
“The security of our riders, street customers, and staff is of paramount significance,” Waymo advised TechCrunch. “As a part of the method of responsibly deploying absolutely autonomous automobiles, we’ve pushed tens of thousands and thousands of miles with human operators behind the wheel. That is a part of our ongoing validation course of and learnings from these journeys are built-in into the service.”
Transdev declined to remark.
Extra miles, extra accidents
Whereas Waymo has spent greater than a decade growing its self-driving vehicles, it wasn’t till 2025 that it actually began to scale. The corporate began providing rides in new cities and started mapping and testing in others, rising its business fleet to more than 1,500 vehicles by Might 2025. At this time, that fleet is greater than 3,500 automobiles.
Waymo doesn’t get away what number of automobiles it makes use of only for testing. However the quantity of autonomous car testing virtually actually elevated as the corporate expanded its service areas and began to familiarize itself with totally new places.
Check driver accidents elevated, too.
Transdev reported 5 Waymo take a look at driver accidents in 2024 throughout San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix. One was associated to laborious braking, whereas the opposite 4 had been associated to erratic car conduct.
In a single case, a take a look at driver reported that the automobile “out of the blue backed up” whereas parking itself and “whipped the steering wheel,” catching his left hand and bending it “to the purpose he heard a crack in his wrist.” The worker spent greater than two months away from work consequently.
The variety of accidents jumped to 11 in these three markets in 2025, and laborious braking was the reason for practically all of them. Final September, a take a look at driver in Phoenix wound up having to spend 157 days away from work after their car “made an exaggerated breaking [sic] occasion with none obstruction.” A minimum of two different harm studies particularly point out that the laborious braking occurred for no obvious purpose.
The one harm report from 2025 that gives a purpose for a hard-braking occasion concerned an incident that occurred in August in Los Angeles. The worker reported that “some children had been enjoying within the pathway.” The Waymo robotaxi stopped laborious sufficient that the employee spent 175 days away from their job.
“Software program braked harshly”
The Zoox contractors stated laborious braking — or “brake jabs,” as they’re referred to internally — can occur a number of occasions on a single take a look at drive, generally in the identical location. They will occur at any velocity, although higher-velocity braking incidents sometimes take a harsher toll on the physique, the employees stated.
The braking usually occurs when the autonomous driving system detects — or mistakenly detects — particles of some form on the street, they stated.
The scariest incidents, the contractors stated, are when a take a look at car experiences a “nogo” — inside code for a complete system shutdown that always results in a brake jab.
“You may be going 45 miles per hour and the automobile will enact a nogo, and out of the blue you’re being whipped ahead in the course of the road, in site visitors, and also you want to have the ability to take over rapidly,” one stated.
This conduct reveals up repeatedly within the harm studies Zoox submitted to OSHA.
On January 5, 2025, a Zoox take a look at car was driving autonomously in San Francisco when it abruptly slammed on the brakes. The “harsh” cease, as Zoox described it, injured the shoulder and higher arm of a contractor who was contained in the SUV, leaving the employee on restricted obligation for 16 days.
Later that month, one other driver was damage after a Zoox take a look at car made an “sudden” cease, injuring their neck and leaving them with a swollen shoulder. It took the contractor eight days to return to work with out restrictions.
Many of the Zoox-reported accidents seem to have occurred to employees who sit within the driver’s seat of the SUVs. The corporate additionally reported an harm to an teacher who trains the take a look at drivers. That harm passed off on June 3 in San Francisco, when the take a look at car’s “software program braked harshly,” inflicting the teacher within the again seat to report “sharp ache in decrease proper ribs and tightness in left shoulder upon returning to base.”
The injured teacher reported extra accidents to the backbone and pelvis, although their work restrictions lasted solely 4 days, in accordance with the info.
Seven of the eight entries explicitly point out laborious braking, nogos, or brake jabs. The eighth harm concerned a employee who was sidelined for the longest period of time — 46 days — and who reported “excessive again ache” after working a take a look at car in Las Vegas in Might 2025. Zoox wrote that the employee stated they “weren’t positive if it was associated to the conduct of the car in autonomy or not however they stated it hurts them to drive in addition to take deep breaths,” and attributed the harm to a “car maneuver.”
Zoox is coping with these hard-braking points because it lastly begins providing a real business robotaxi service in a bid to compete with Waymo. The Amazon-owned firm began charging for rides in its purpose-built robotaxi for the primary time this month in Las Vegas. It presents free rides in San Francisco and is testing in Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.
4 of the accidents Zoox reported in 2025 occurred after the corporate issued a recall meant to resolve a year-long federal investigation into the tendency of its autonomous automobiles to brake unexpectedly. Zoox advised TechCrunch the recall addressed an especially slim braking conduct and stated the later incidents — and any ensuing accidents — are unrelated to the software program repair.
Two of the individuals who spoke to TechCrunch stated that braking could be difficult even when manually driving the Zoox take a look at vehicles due to the additional weight of the self-driving sensor suite. Check drivers are educated to brake with the additional weight, they stated, although they added that minor accidents could be sustained even throughout that coaching course of.
It’s laborious to know if Zoox is experiencing hard-braking incidents with any regularity in its purpose-built automobiles, which should not have conventional controls equivalent to a steering wheel or pedals. They both function unoccupied or carry passengers who largely aren’t workers – that means any accidents wouldn’t be reported to OSHA.
Zoox has reported two robotaxi crashes to the Nationwide Freeway Site visitors Security Administration within the final eight months through which laborious braking for particles resulted within the purpose-built automobiles being rear-ended. The corporate’s descriptions of the crashes don’t specify what particles was noticed in both case.
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