“So your car here drove into oncoming lanes of traffic.”
Wrong Lane
A video making the rounds on social media shows a police officer in Phoenix, Arizona pulling over a vehicle after it drove down a busy road in the opposing lane.
But as the body cam footage, which was shared by AZCentral last week, quickly reveals, there’s no human driver behind the wheel. It’s a driverless taxi operated by self-driving car company Waymo — leading to an unusual and incredibly awkward interaction.
“There’s no driver,” the officer told dispatch over his radio. “Hi!” he added cheerfully once the window was automatically rolled down.
“Connected to rider support,” a robotic voice answered unperturbed. “This call may be recorded for quality assurance.”
“So your car here drove into oncoming lanes of traffic,” the cop told the Waymo support team member.
“Okay, I will go ahead and take a look at that right now,” the disembodied voice replied.
Freak Out
The incident highlights just how difficult it can be for law enforcement to ensure driverless vehicles are following the rules of the road.
We’ve already seen plenty of reported incidents between robotaxis and human drivers. Most notably, a woman was found trapped underneath a self-driving Cruise vehicle last year, leading to owner General Motors shutting down all driverless operations.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is also actively investigating Waymo over 31 incidents involving its vehicles breaking traffic laws, almost half of which occurred in Arizona.
Fortunately, nobody was hurt in the latest incident. The company has been operating its self-driving car-hailing service since mid-2022 and is planning to expand commercial services into Los Angeles, California.
“You know the construction here?” the officer told a curious passerby. “It was going eastbound in the westbound lanes, which is real bad. So I light it up and it takes off in the intersection.”
Dispatch records obtained by AZCentral said that the car ran a red light and “FREAKED OUT” before it pulled over.
The company told The Independent in a statement that the car “encountered inconsistent construction signage and briefly entered an unoccupied oncoming lane of traffic.” It was then “blocked from navigating back into the correct lane” for roughly 30 seconds.
In the end, Waymo got away scot-free.
“UNABLE TO ISSUE CITATION TO COMPUTER,” the police dispatch records read.
More on self-driving cars: Mercedes Exec Blasts Tesla for Reckless “Full Self-Driving” Rollout
