Police Pulls Waymo Over – Here’s What Follows

Some time ago, a video led to some amusement when a Cruise Robotaxi was stopped by the San Francisco police and then apparently “escaped”.

The fact is, however, that driverless robotaxi companies are training emergency responders before they are authorized. The police officers, firefighters and emergency services receive training on how the vehicle will behave when interacting with the emergency responders and their vehicles, and how they can contact the operations center.

Now a video has been released by the Phoenix PD from the point of view of the police officer on duty – the so-called body cam – who had stopped a Waymo for driving on the wrong side of the road. The confusion for the robotaxi was apparently caused by poor or unclear roadworks signage.

In the video, we see the vehicle stop in a car park and roll down the side windows as the police officer approaches. The police officer reaches into the vehicle and presses a phone button to reach the operations center and speak to a human employee, explaining the situation. The employee immediately checks the situation, while the police officer explains the reason for stopping the Waymo in more detail.

NEW: Phoenix police officer pulls over a driverless Waymo car for driving on the wrong side of the road leading the nonexistent driver to roll the windows down to speak with the police.

This is hilarious.

Waymo has since released a statement, apparently blaming the incident… pic.twitter.com/JKF2JSEGCu

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) July 4, 2024

Such situations serve to train the Robotaxis better so that they don’t do it again next time.

This article was also published in German.