A Serve Robotics food delivery robot crashed through the glass wall of a bus stop shelter in Chicago earlier this week, shattering the glass all over the sidewalk. The crash comes amid a protest against delivery robots in Chicago and a few weeks after a politician who represents part of Chicago said he would not allow the robots into his district.
Footage of the aftermath of the crash went viral on Reddit and X, with one of the company’s robots shaking shards of glass onto the sidewalk. Serve Robotics told 404 Media in a statement that the company sent people out to clean up the mess.
“We’re aware of the incident involving one of our robots in Chicago. No injuries were reported, our team responded quickly to clean up, and we’re reviewing what happened to make improvements,” the spokesperson said. “We have also been in contact with local stakeholders and are committed to addressing any concerns directly. We take this matter very seriously.”
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Serve deployed its robots to Chicago in September under a partnership with Uber Eats. The company operates in a few cities around the country, including in Los Angeles, where activists have been filming the robots in various compromising positions or after they have been knocked over by passersby. In 2023, Serve Robotics fed footage from one of its robots to the Los Angeles Police Department, we reported. In 2022, a Serve robot drove underneath police caution tape and through what was at the time considered to be an active crime scene, where a school shooting at Hollywood High School was reported to be taking place (the shooting was deemed a hoax, but police were actively investigating at the time).
Delivery robots have been controversial in Chicago, where at least 3,600 Chicago residents have signed a “No Sidewalk Bots” petition asking the city to ban the robots. Chicago’s First District Alderman Daniel La Spata has said that the delivery robots will not be allowed into his district after polling residents there; 83 percent of respondents to his poll said they “strongly disagreed” with allowing the robots.
The No Sidewalk Bots petition website notes “Chicago sidewalks are for people, not delivery robots,” and says that people who have signed the petition “are reporting collisions or other troubling contact, accessibility issues, and/or obstruction.”
The Chicago Department of Transportation did not respond to a request for comment.
