“A Waymo standoff.”
Touch-and-Go
In San Francisco, Google’s Waymo’s driverless taxis are once again causing way-mo problems than expected.
In a video posted to TikTok, a bemused onlooker documents one of the company’s Jaguar I-Paces as it causes an autonomous pileup in the city’s notoriously traffic-riddled streets.
“The Waymo is stuck because the Waymo is trying to go behind the Amazon [truck],” the bystander explains, “but then it’s stuck behind the Waymo, and oh, my god, there’s another Waymo!”
Indeed, as the 35-second clip shows, an Amazon truck got trapped between four of the white Waymo cars. As explicated by the user behind the video, who goes by the handle romokris, there ended up being a 19-car pileup resulting from the mishap.
“What’s everybody gonna do?” romokris continues while cracking up. “It is a Waymo standoff! What is gonna happen? Who’s winning? [cackles]”
Thankfully, another of the driverless taxis shows up to apparently save the day and shepherd its fellow Waymos back to safe harbor.
“That Waymo came through, woo hoo!” the onlooker declares. “Yay!”
Honk Shoo
This is not the first time Waymos have gone haywire in the city by the bay.
Soon after debuting in SF, a bunch of the company’s cars started honking at each other, for some reason, when trying to navigate a specific parking lot.
The apparent Waymo glitch became such a nuisance that residents of the neighborhood where the honking took place said the noise was waking them up at night.
“Over the past two weeks, I’ve been woken up more times overnight than I have combined over 20 years,” explained disgruntled San Franciscan Russell Pofsky in an interview with the local ABC7 news station.
Video footage of the Waymo convention in the South of Market parking deck showed just how bizarre and cacophonous the problem was as the robotaxis tried and failed to maneuver around each other, honking their apparent displeasure at each other all the while.
Now it looks like Waymos have caused yet more commotion in the streets of San Francisco.
More on Waymos: Waymo Passenger Clutches Small Dog as Vandals Surround Vehicle
