Waymo’s “Pull Over”-feature

A video of a passenger in a Waymo driving in circles eight times in a parking lot in Los Angeles has gone viral in recent days. Mainly because it gives the impression that the passenger was completely helpless. But that’s not true.

First of all: of course it’s bad when a robotaxi behaves like this. This is behavior that needs to be corrected by Waymo. The support staff that the passenger contacted could not help him either, because Waymos do not allow teleoperation (i.e. taking over the steering wheel remotely), but they do allow teleassist (text instructions to the vehicle).

However, passengers have other options to end a journey prematurely, and the function can be found very easily. On both screens – on the front seat and on the rear seat – “Pull Over” is clearly visible. With this function, the Waymo drives safely to the side of the road, stops and lets the passenger get out. The journey is over and the passengers have got out.

We can only speculate as to why the passenger in the ride in question did not do this. He certainly didn’t seem to be blind.

This article was also published in German.