GoKawiilSign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech Email address Sign Up Thank you!
Chicagoans are ducking for cover as delivery robots turn into heat-seeking missiles for innocent glass structures.
On Tuesday, another one of these lunchboxes on wheels seems to have smashed into a bus shelter and rained shattered glass all over the sidewalk. Bizarrely, it’s the second time in a matter of days that this exact same thing happened in the Windy City.
Weird coincidence, or do the machines just have it out for fragile transit infrastructure? Something seems to be afoot, since the offending robots were operated by two different companies.
The latest crash, as reported by local outlet Block Club, was perpetrated by a robot from Coco, one of several robotics firms allowed to operate deliveries in certain parts of Chicago. Footage posted online shows the Coco bot idling in the mess it made, with glass shards sprinkled across its top.
Another day…another delivery robot smashing into a Chicago bus shelter. This time, it's a Coco robot at North and Larrabee in Old Town. @BlockClubCHI pic.twitter.com/qyshLrxV1w — Quinn Myers (@rquinnmyers) March 25, 2026
In a statement to Block Club, Coco insisted that this was a “rare, isolated incident” and that it was launching an investigation into how the crash happened.
“This is the first time one of our robots has collided with a structure like this. Our robots operate at a top speed of about 5 miles per hour, and safety is a top priority in how we design and monitor our systems,” Carl Hansen, Coco’s head of safety and government relations, said in the statement.
It’s a screwup that will cast even more scrutiny on the robots’ presence in the city. Days before, a delivery bot from Serve Robotics also smashed into a glass bus shelter. In a viral video of the aftermath, the robot jerks back and forth to shake the glass off, showering yet more dangerous shards onto the sidewalk.
Since then, another video surfaced showing the moment of the crash. At first, the robot drives around a glass panel displaying an ad, but then swerves back inside the bus shelter and hits the panel without one.
... continue reading