Rushden man says he was 'wiped out' by Starship delivery robot

A Rushden man has questioned the safety of Starship’s delivery robots after being ‘wiped out’ by one near a town shop.

Darryl Lane and the robot collided on the evening of November 26 outside Rushden’s High Street South Sainsbury's.

He insists that he sustained injuries, and that his shopping was damaged, and wants others to be cautious around the self-driving robots.

He said: “I was about to cross the road, therefore looking right for any traffic, and the robot wiped me out coming from the left at high speed on the pavement.”

Mr Lane questioned the efficiency and safety of the machines and said the incident was like tangling with ‘a serial killer robot with a split personality’.

He added: “This could have killed a human easily, especially a small child or weak OAP.”

In response a Starship Technologies spokesman said: “We’ve been made aware of a situation involving one of our robots in Northamptonshire.

"We take safety very seriously and are looking into the details of what happened.”

Starship delivery robots have become more familiar to local streets as North Northamptonshire Council (NNC) partnered with the company in June to make home deliveries easier for all.

The robots use a combination of sensors, artificial intelligence and machine learning to travel on pavements. Starship claims ‘they’re inherently safe and can navigate around objects and people’.

The robots are designed to deliver food, groceries and packages locally in minutes with automatic systems being able to be over-ridden by humans, who can take control at any time.