PHOENIX — Social media users captured dramatic videos of driverless Waymo vehicles stuck in floodwaters during Friday's storm in Arizona. It has prompted concerns about the safety of the autonomous cars.

As Phoenix was hit with the most rain the area had seen in seven years, Waymo opted to temporarily halt operations in the Valley on Friday. Its vehicles were seen driving directly into flooded roads, then stopping. Passengers were stranded, and some vehicles had to be towed out of the standing water.

Andrew Maynard, a professor of advanced technology at ASU, said he was not surprised.

“These cars really haven't had enough time to be trained on how to manage flooding that happened as fast as this did," Maynard said. "We like to think of them as sort of being the equivalent of human dri

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