Seven Waymo robotaxis blocked site visitors transferring onto the Potrero Avenue 101 on-ramp in San Francisco on Tuesday at 9:30 p.m., based on video of the incident posted to Reddit and affirmation from Waymo.
While routing again to Waymo’s metropolis depot that night, the primary robotaxi within the lineup got here throughout a street closure with site visitors cones. The solely different path out there to the automobiles was to take the freeway, based on a Waymo spokesperson. California regulators lately authorised Waymo to function its autonomous robotaxi service on San Francisco freeways and not using a human driver, however the firm remains to be solely testing on freeways with a human driver within the entrance seat. Waymo instructed TechCrunch it’s first prioritizing a secure and gradual scale of rider-only freeway operations in Arizona earlier than advancing in California.
After hitting the street closure, the primary Waymo automobile within the lineup then pulled over out of the site visitors lane that was blocked by cones, adopted by six different Waymo robotaxis. Human-driven vehicles have been then caught behind among the robotaxis; a video posted on-line reveals fed-up drivers getting out of their vehicles to bodily transfer the cones out of the way in which so they might move each the street closure and the stalled Waymos.
Waymo instructed TechCrunch it instantly dispatched its Roadside Assistance crew to manually retrieve the automobiles and that the entire occasion lasted not than 30 minutes.
It’s not the primary time Waymo automobiles have induced a street blockage, however that is the primary documented incident involving a freeway. Cruise, GM’s autonomous automobile subsidiary, has come underneath scrutiny for a number of instances of its automobiles malfunctioning and blocking site visitors, first responders and public transit. Of course, human drivers block site visitors on a regular basis, however metropolis officers and first responders in San Francisco have expressed frustration with each not with the ability to entry and transfer robotaxis after they’re in the way in which and never with the ability to difficulty site visitors citations to the automobiles. In San Francisco, there should be a driver within the automobile with the intention to difficulty a quotation.
