It seems that neither the bus nor the athlete are to blame.
Take the road with you
One of the self-driving shuttle buses at Tokyo Olympic Village crashed into a Paralympian as they crossed the street on Thursday afternoon.
Agence France-Presse reports that the bus crashed into Aramitsu Kitazono (30), a Japanese judo competitor. He was severely blind and suffered head and leg injuries. Although there are many moving parts in this story, it is not just about an autonomous bus making an error that could be dangerous. The crash is an unfortunate example of what can happen when vehicles become smarter and more efficient before they are ready for primetime.
Whodunnit?
It is not clear whether the bus was to blame in this instance. According to AFP's reporting, there were two people aboard the bus at the time of the accident. Human operators are allowed to ride in the driver's seat, just like autonomous vehicles. They can keep an eye on dangerous situations and take control if necessary. AFP reports that they could have made matters worse in this instance.
According to local news cited AFP, the bus saw Kitazono walking towards the street and stopped. The human operators assumed Kitazono would stop walking, and ordered the vehicle to move forward, possibly not realizing Kitazono was visually impaired. This led to the collision. It is not known if the bus was in autonomous driving mode at that point, or if the human operators took full control of the vehicle at the time of the collision.
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According to AFP, it is not clear if Kitazono will be able to compete on Saturday. Toyota assured AFP that it had suspended its bus operations and is working with the local police to determine what went wrong.
READ MORE: Paralympian with visual impairment hit by self-driving coach [Agence France Press]
More about autonomous vehicles: We took a ride on NYC's first self-driving shuttle
