America’s first self-driving shuttle got into a wreck with a semi truck within its first hour of operation.
The mishap occurred on November 8th in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The self-driving shuttle is sponsored by AAA and was launched Thursday morning, but within the first hour, the shuttle had already ran into some problems.
According to News 3 LV, the shuttle was stopped when a nearby semi truck began backing up to make a delivery. The truck driver apparently did not see the stopped shuttle and ended up backing into it, denting the bumper of the shuttle.
Truck making delivery backed into shuttle, which was stopped. Human error causes most traffic collisions and this was no different. Driver of truck was cited. No one hurt except a bruised bumper!
— Mike Blasky (@blasky) November 8, 2017
No one was hurt in the incident, and the semi-truck was not damaged.
The truck driver was cited for the incident, and a representative from the AAA says that the cause of the crash was “human error,” and not a shuttle malfunction.
The driver-less shuttle, which was set to run a continuous loop around downtown Las Vegas, had to be shut down for the day.
The shuttle was scheduled to run that continuous loop for the next year, but it is not clear whether the collision will affect those plans.