I’ve had a couple of inquiries about these gizmos — the official legal term is “personal delivery device” — so I wanted to finally assemble updated (the current AZ law is from 2020) info, go here.
In brief: these are able to be fully autonomously guided (driven?), can use sidewalks and streets with certain restrictions: max speed being the most obvious.
My thought on safety is these would be a net positive in that they have very little chance of causing a serious injury to anybody, compared to a vehicle. We’ve seen first hand what gig working food deliver drivers can do.
I think the main issues I’ve heard with these delivery robots is the problems they created for disabled pedestrians – such as when the robot freezes up or simply stops and waits in a manner that blocks a narrow sidewalk or accessibility features such as curb ramps or building access ramps.
I can imagine similar issues for cyclists given there’s a lot of narrow bike lanes being out there, too narrow to pass a robot on a bike. For unprotected bike lanes, the cyclist would have to swerve into traffic to pass a delivery robot. For protected bike lanes, barriers on both sides can block the ability to get by the robot.
It’s interesting to hear these delivery devices have some presence in statue. I have to wonder if there was some quiet lobbying by industry.
Oh I’m sure there were lobbied; not that I’m saying that’s necessarily a bad thing, it’s just the way legislation gets done.
P.s. did you read my conundrum about direction of travel in the legal details?
Yes, I too am sure they lobbied (in a way that no one realizes what’s happening). The idea that the direction of travel is apparently not spelled out is concerning. Even the idea that a shoulder is seemingly not a requirement for a robot to be on the road leads to many questions. For example, all States spell out a duty for cyclists to “stay to the right” if sharing a lane. Just what is a robot required to do? Does their hardware/software direct the robot to swerve out around potholes – like cyclist do? Lots of issues if the robot is in a lane – especially if not following the direction of travel.