As robotic taxis spread more and more in the United States, the issue of the safety of the testing chain began to receive more attention. TechCrunch looked at disclosures by the United States Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and found that Waymo and Zoox testers had suffered more than 20 injuries between 2024 and 2025, mainly related to auto-driving brakes, sudden shifts or unusual movements.
Wayne reported 16 related injuries in two years.
According to reports, Transdev, who hired and managed the Waymo test driver, reported 16 related injuries at the Waymo site in three cities. Public records show that most incidents are related to sudden brakes or rapid turnovers of the autopilot system.
When the vehicle was parked automatically, one of the examiners stated that the car had suddenly turned upside down and hit the wheel, resulting in his left hand being stuck, injury to his wrist and subsequent departure for more than two months. By 2025, the number of related injuries in the three places had increased to 11, and the vast majority of the injuries were equally of a critical nature.
The public record also mentions that a tester in Phoenix left work for 157 days following an abnormal brake on “fore accessibility” in September 2025. Another incident in Los Angeles occurred in August 2025, when employees said that the vehicle had stopped because of children entering the road ahead and then left work for 175 days.
Zoox says multiple injuries have to do with the brakes.
Zoox submitted records to OSHA for up to 8 work injuries related to the brakes. Two current and three former contractors interviewed by TechCrunch stated that the test vehicle carrying the autopilot system was still subject to sudden brakes in July of this year, and that some of its employees were still being injured in the test.
According to the interviewees, such cases were internally referred to as “brake jabs”, which may occur several times during a test trip and sometimes repeatedly in the same section. According to them, the system often triggers a brake by identifying, or miscalculating, a barrier on the road, with a greater physical impact at high speed.
OSHA records indicate that in January 2025, a Zoox test vehicle suddenly stopped while travelling automatically in San Francisco, resulting in injury to the shoulder and upper arm of the contractor in the vehicle and limited work for 16 days. In the same month, another driver was able to return to normal work after eight days of swelling his shoulder due to injuries to his neck and “unexpected parking”.
Security pressure rises after commercialization.
Waymo has been driving auto-drive research and development for more than a decade, but the real big expansion took place in 2025. The company had over 1,500 commercial convoys in May of that year, and now more than 3,500. Although the number of vehicles tested was not separately disclosed by Waymo, with the expansion of new cities and the advancement of map collection, the increase in the mileage of tests is almost certain.
Zoox is also accelerating commercialization. This month, the company began to charge for its own customized robot taxi service in Las Vegas for the first time, providing free rides in San Francisco and testing in Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Seattle and Washington, D.C.
It is noteworthy that of the eight injuries reported by Zoox in 2025, 4 occurred after the company completed a recall of the software. The recall was intended to respond to a year-long United States federal-level investigation into vehicle accident brakes. Zoox stated to TechCrunch that the recall was aimed at a very narrow set of brakes and that the follow-up incident and the associated injuries had nothing to do with the restoration.
Neither Waymo nor Zoox responded in detail to specific cases. Waymo states that the safety of passengers, road users and teams remains a priority, that testing with human operators is part of its certification process and that relevant experience will be incorporated into subsequent service improvements.