Gadzooks! A new SF self-driving car controversy, this time as a man claims one of Amazon’s Zoox self-driving cars hit his vehicle and smashed his hand, while Zoox instead insists that the man opened his door into incoming traffic.

The bubbly-box-shaped Amazon-owned Zoox self-driving cars are seen as the Number Two player in the robotaxi industry right behind Google’s Waymo, but they fell into that position more by luck than anything else. After the stunning collapse of Cruise, Zoox merely started offering public rides this past November, and automatically became SF's second most-prominent robotaxi company. This has somewhat concealed Zoox's problems of a collision with an SF e-bike rider this past April, and a subsequent Zoox crash into another car in Las Vegas four days later that prompted a Zoox recall of a few hundred vehicles.

Now Zoox seems to have another SF safety incident, though where the blame lies here is much more opaque. Mission Local reports that a man says a Zoox car his hit vehicle and smashed his hand on Saturday afternoon at about 1:30 pm in the Mission District. Mission Local has photos showing that the man’s 1977 Cadillac Coupe DeVille was indeed hit, that his car did have to be towed, and that the Zoox vehicle had its own window glass smashed and shows signs of impact. Though oddly, the man in question is not speaking publicly, and all of his communications are being handled by his boss at the street ambassador firm Ahsing Solutions.

That boss, Terrain Miller, tells the Chronicle that his employee Jamel Durden was closing his vehicle’s door when the Zoox “hit the car door with his hand on it.” Miller adds Durden’s hand was smashed,” and that “his hand was on the car door as he was shutting it.”

Zoox, as you would imagine, has a different version of events.

“A robotaxi was traveling straight on 15th Street when the driver of a parked vehicle suddenly opened their door into the path of the robotaxi,” Zoox said in a statement to Mission Local. “The robotaxi identified the opening door and tried to avoid it but contact was unavoidable.”

The company added that,“Following the incident between the two vehicles, Zoox followed all standard safety protocols including offering medical attention if necessary, which the individual declined.”

The maybe-victim Jamel Durden apparently changed his mind of declining medical care, and did indeed seek medical attention later Saturday. His boss Miller said that Durden’s “hand was hurting,” and that he was experiencing neck and lower back pain.

Apparently no police reports were ever filed Saturday, and Zoox says it will not make its in-car camera surveillance footage public. So probably not much will ever become of this one. And it remains to be seen if Zoox can continue to have its odd-looking cars all over SF’s roads, without also having them all over SF’s headlines over safety incidents.

Related: Amazon-Owned Autonomous Taxi Company Zoox Begins Offering Public Rides [SFist]

Image: SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA - NOVEMBER 19: A Zoox robotaxi is seen driving on November 19, 2025 in San Francisco, California. Zoox, the Amazon-owned robotaxi service, has begun carrying select riders in San Francisco after launching a free ride program in Las Vegas while it waits for regulatory approval to operate as a paid service. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)