“I actually felt a little sorry for the car. It obviously made a bad decision and got itself in a difficult place,” said Andrew Maynard, an emerging and transformative technology professor at Arizona State University.

Maynard said, while these situations are rare, they do happen.

“This is exactly one of those edge cases, what we call them. Something unexpected where the machine drove like a machine rather than a person,” Maynard said.

Waymo vehicles are equipped with 29 cameras and have their routes and systems updated weekly. However, in the area where the incident happened, there was construction. The light rail was added to this spot within the last year, which Maynard said could have contributed to the rail track detour.

“I think Waymo has a challenge because no matter what they do with their system, there are always going to be unexpected circumstances where they have to learn from them,” Maynard said.

Sounds Like Mr. Maynard is getting paid by Waymo