Autonomous shuttle passenger injured following sudden stop

A 76-year-old passenger travelling on an autonomous shuttle has been injured after the vehicle came to an unexpected stop, says KUTV. Gene Petrie, an employee at the Utah State Tax Commission, was thrown from his seat and hit the handrail near the door, resulting in bruising and black eyes. Charlie Roberts, spokesman for the Utah State Tax Commission, is quoted saying: “Out of the clear blue, it suddenly stopped, and it wasn’t a slow-down stop. It was a sudden stop.” Petrie went to the hospital f
August 6, 2019 Read time: 2 mins

A 76-year-old passenger travelling on an autonomous shuttle has been injured after the vehicle came to an unexpected stop, says %$Linker: 2 External <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary /> 0 0 0 link-external KUTV false https://kutv.com/news/local/first-injury-on-utahs-driverless-shuttle-during-unexpected-stop false false%>.

Gene Petrie, an employee at the Utah State Tax Commission, was thrown from his seat and hit the handrail near the door, resulting in bruising and black eyes.

Charlie Roberts, spokesman for the Utah State Tax Commission, is quoted saying: “Out of the clear blue, it suddenly stopped, and it wasn’t a slow-down stop. It was a sudden stop.”

Petrie went to the hospital for treatment and returned to work the next day. He is a state worker travelling on the shuttle near the Multi Agency State Office Building while the 1904 Utah Department of Transportation (UDoT) is testing the technology.

John Gleason, UDoT spokesman, says: “As soon as this happened, we took the shuttle out of service immediately for about 24 hours and ran a bunch of tests on it, ran through the emergency stops, looked at the software, looked at the sensors.”

The cause of the sudden stop is unknown as no one noticed a pedestrian or obstacle that may have tripped a sensor.

“You hate to see an incident like that, but we’re confident in the overall safety of the shuttle and we’ve taken a lot of precautions to ensure something like this doesn’t happen again,” Gleason adds.

The UDoT has reduced the shuttle’s speed from 12 miles per hour to 9. The operator is now more frequently warning people that abrupt stops are possible.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Bosch to trial driverless tech on Australia’s high-speed rural roads
    January 24, 2019
    Bosch has received an automated driving system (ADS) permit from the Victorian government to test automated vehicle technology on high-speed rural roads in the south-eastern Australian state. Bosch is to use a $2.3 million grant from the Connected and Automated Vehicle (C/AV) Trial Grants Programme to develop the technology, which will be tested later this year. The C/AV programme funded through the government’s $1.4 million Towards Zero Action Plan – an initiative which provides guidelines on how V
    Read More
  • EasyMile partnership to bring autonomous technology to bus
    December 1, 2017
    EasyMile has partnered with Iveco, Sector, Transpolis, Isae-supaero, Ifsttar, Inria, and Michelin to integrate autonomous technology into a full-size 12-meter bus. The project has been funded by French government through a Fonds Unique Interministériel program as well as certified and supported by Cara, Aerospace Valley and Nouvelle France Industrielle. The 100-passenger capacity bus will either be hybrid or electric powered and draws on EasyMile’s experience of developing the EZ10 driverless shuttle in
    Read More
  • SmartStation group reveal the importance of intelligent stops
    March 13, 2018
    A SmartStation research and design project has worked with PTV Group and Raumobil to develop ideas on how to turn analogue stops into digital hubs, in Karlsruhe. The scheme, commissioned by the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure, set out to reveal the importance of networked stations for multimodal mobility. The initiatives 18-month research phase identified that intelligent stops that include analogue facilities such as information terminals, escalators, elevators and lockers need to
    Read More
  • Dyson scraps EV project
    October 16, 2019
    British technology company Dyson has pulled out of a project to build electric vehicles (EVs), saying it is unable to make its car “commercially viable”. Chief executive Sir James Dyson said in a statement: “We have been through a serious process to find a buyer for the project which has, unfortunately, been unsuccessful so far.” The company, known primarily for its vacuum cleaners, says it will continue its £2.5 billion investment programme into new technology in two UK locations and in Singapore. It wil
    Read More

Highlighted Content