Last year, in an accident in which an autonomous car came into contact with a Japanese judo player in the athletes' village of the Tokyo Paralympics and the athlete was injured, the Metropolitan Police Department made an emergency stop even though the operator in the car noticed the athlete. The policy is to send documents on the suspicion of accidental driving injury on the 6th, saying that the measures were not taken properly.
Aramitsu Kitazono, a Japanese representative of judo who was crossing a pedestrian crossing when an automatically driven electric car turned right at an intersection on the premises at the Tokyo Paralympic athletes' village in Harumi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo last August. Contacted.
In this accident, Kitazono suffered a slight injury to his leg and then missed the match due to poor physical condition.
At that time, electric cars were patrolling the premises for athletes and tournament officials, and according to the Metropolitan Police Department, while the operation of hitting the steering wheel was automatically performed, Toyota Motor's to check the safety of the surroundings and respond to emergencies. A 39-year-old male employee was in the car as an operator.
According to investigators, subsequent investigations revealed that the employee had not taken appropriate emergency stop measures, even though he noticed the athlete's crossing.
The automatic braking also worked, but because it wasn't in time, the employee told any questioning, "I didn't think the athlete would just walk on the pedestrian crossing."
The Metropolitan Police Department plans to send documents on the suspicion of negligent driving injury on the 6th, saying that such a judgment led to an accident.
The car that caused the accident was developed by Toyota Motor Corporation
This time, the accident was caused by the self-driving electric vehicle = "e-Palette" developed by Toyota Motor Corporation.
According to the company's website, the box-shaped design with a total length of about 5 meters and a width of about 2 meters can accommodate up to 20 people.
The maximum speed is 19 km / h, which means that it can travel up to 150 km on a single charge.
Normally, there is no driver's seat or steering wheel because it runs automatically, and when driving, an operator who confirms the function of automatic driving gets on instead of the driver.
In the Olympic Village, we were touring the premises for athletes and tournament officials as a demonstration experiment, but due to an accident, the operation was temporarily suspended.
At that time, Toyota Motor Corporation President Akio Toyoda apologized on his website saying, "I'm very sorry for your concern," and said, "There are people who are blind in the special environment of the Paralympics. , There are people with disabilities, and I couldn't cope with the environment up to that point. "
After that, Toyota Motor took safety measures such as switching some driving to manual operation and carrying a crew member who visually confirms safety separately from the person in charge of operation, and then operated "e-Palette". It was restarting.
Also, in August of last year, the Games Organizing Committee did not properly inform the athletes that the staff guiding pedestrians at the intersection was coming, or when the car was moving. We have published the results of the investigation that the cause was that the sound of the car was quiet.