Seven Waymo robo-taxis blocked traffic on the Potrero Avenue 101 on-ramp in San Francisco at 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, according to video of the incident posted to Reddit and confirmation from Waymo.
That evening, while returning to the Waymo municipal depot, the first robotaxi in line came upon a road closed by traffic cones. The only other route available for vehicles was to take the highway, according to a Waymo spokesperson. California regulators recently allowed Waymo to operate its autonomous robotaxi service on San Francisco highways without a human driver, but the company is still only testing on highways with a human driver in the front seat. Waymo told TechCrunch that it is first prioritizing safe and progressive operation of user-only highways in Arizona before moving forward in California.
After hitting the closed road, the first Waymo vehicle in line then stopped out of the cone-blocked traffic lane, followed by six more Waymo robo-taxis. Cars driven by humans were then stuck behind some robot taxis; video posted online shows tired drivers getting out of their cars to physically move the cones so they can get past both the road closure and the blocked Waymos.
Waymo told TechCrunch that it immediately dispatched its roadside assistance team to manually recover the vehicles and that the entire event lasted no more than 30 minutes.
This isn’t the first time Waymo vehicles have caused a road block, but it is the first documented incident involving a highway. Cruise, GM’s autonomous vehicle subsidiary, has come under scrutiny for several instances of its vehicles malfunctioning and blocking traffic, first responders and public transportation. Of course, human drivers block traffic all the time, but city officials and first responders in San Francisco have expressed frustration at not being able to access and move robo-taxis when they get in the way, and also to not being able to issue traffic tickets. to vehicles. In San Francisco, there must be a driver in the car to issue a citation.
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