After a parking lot crash in Chandler, Arizona, a woman walked toward a Waymo. She had her license and registration ready, but there was no driver to take them. She left.
That 2022 crash appears in a new Arizona’s Family investigation into drivers who hit the company’s cars and leave. The station published its findings November 10. They cover crashes across metro Phoenix over more than four years.
Per mile driven, Waymos were in police-reported hit-and-runs at 2.4 times the rate of other Maricopa County drivers. Waymo questions whether more drivers flee after hitting its cars or whether it reports more of those crashes to police.
Most crash reports did not explain why the other driver left. Experts who spoke to the station raised one possible cause: people may not know how to trade insurance details with a car that has no driver.
An Empty Seat
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Phil Koopman, who studies self-driving cars, pointed to the training gap. Police and first responders can get training on dealing with these cars, yet still have trouble with them.
“Ordinary drivers don’t go through how-to-talk-to-a-robotaxi training,” he told Arizona’s Family. Fellow expert Missy Cummings also asked how people should trade details when the other car has no driver.
In another Chandler crash, someone rear-ended a driverless Waymo and drove off. The broadcast includes the police response. A Waymo roadside worker waiting for police told the officer, “Most of the time, they just leave.”
Counting the Departures
The station spent 10 months gathering police reports and body camera footage. It searched Phoenix, Scottsdale, Chandler, Mesa, and Tempe. The crashes took place between September 1, 2020, and December 31, 2024.
Of 88 police-reported Waymo crashes, 43 were listed as hit-and-runs. In those cases, the Waymo stayed and the other driver left. Most damage was minor.
Waymo told the station that reporting habits could affect the findings. A higher rate in police records could mean that Waymo reports a larger share of crashes. It may not mean that more hit-and-runs take place per mile driven.
Cummings and Koopman also raised sudden braking as a possible factor in rear-end crashes. A sudden stop could catch the driver behind it off guard. They did not prove that it caused the hit-and-runs in the review.
Waymo pushed back on the sudden braking theory. In its response to Arizona’s Family, the company noted that rear-end crashes are common for both human drivers and self-driving cars.
Making Contact
In an interview the year before, Waymo’s Camille Dredge gave several ways to exchange details. Drivers could reach the company online, call, contact its insurance team, or wait for roadside help.
Waymo’s contact page lists a U.S. number to exchange insurance details: 844-263-9885. The line serves drivers, people on foot, and cyclists. People with a Google account can also use the form linked on that page.