Wuhan Driverless Car Hits Man!

[XNmotors News]

On the afternoon of July 7th, 2024, a video starting circulating on the internet of a car accident in Wuhan. 

However, unlike most cases this particular case caught much attention of the netizens given credit to its peculiar situation. The reason being that the accident occurred between the driverless taxi service Apollo, launched by the famous tech company Baidu. 

In the video, Baidu's self-driving driverless taxi had a slight contact with a pedestrian at the intersection between Parrot Avenue and Guobo Avenue in Hanyang District. The traffic police rushed to the scene. And the situation was taken under control.

According to the media reports published on 8th of July, Baidu has officially given statement on the matter. 

Spokesperson of Baidu responded by saying that the accident occurred when the green light turned on and the vehicle started. There was a slight contact with a pedestrian who ran through the red light set up on the pedestrian crossing.

After the accident, Baidu showed immediate response by cooperating with the police and accompanying the injured to the hospital for examination. After the examination, doctors reported back with no obvious injury or trauma, however, was kept in the hospital for further observation and rest as a precaution. 

It maybe noted that Baidu has made remarkable progress in the field of autonomous driving. Its self-driving taxi services has been running successfully in citrines like Wuhan, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Beijing, Shanghai etc  

According to sources, Baidu officially launched its self-driving taxi service without safety officers in Wuhan and Chongqing, since August 2022.

By the end of September 2023, Apollo had been operating in many core areas of Wuhan and received more than 340,000 orders. In December of the same year, Wuhan Economic and Information Bureau announced that Wuhan had become the world's largest unmanned operation service area.

However, with the experiment and operation of Apollo in cities such as Wuhan, a series of traffic problems have gradually emerged. Complaints and feedback on the public domain of the Wuhan citizens of Yangtze River Network have gradually increased. Some reported traffic stagnation at green lights due to the cars slow response, while others reported problems such as the driverless cars breaking red lights, turning and getting stuck, especially during the morning and evening rush hour etc. All becoming Leading to an increased traffic congestion problem in an already populated city.  

In response to the complaints, the Wuhan Economic Development Zone Management Committee has responded that it has received and verified the complaints. The committee admitted that the vehicles did have debugging and optimization problems during the on-the-road experiment. 

The relevant management committee apologized and reassured the citizens that it shall be reporting back to the tech company and all matters shall be managed in time, ensuring roads safety.

Even though the car company’s action and city government operations, are rather proactive, it still doesn’t inhibit the sudden doubt caused by the recent accident. 

The accident has once again aroused the concern of the society about the safety and stability of self-driving technology. 

Although self-driving technology has made great progress in recent years, the fundamentals of how to ensure the safety and stability of vehicles in a complex and changeable traffic environment is still remain to be solved. 

Baidu and other relevant technology enterprises should continue to increase technology research and development and investment, to further improve the safety and reliability of self-driving technology, while providing safer and more convenient travel services for citizens.

( Articles/ XNmotors Sarah )

Keywords: driverless, cars, Baidu, china, news, wuhan.