Waymo self-driving cars make illegal U-turns, zigzag through tunnels, roll past stops: report

San Francisco residents gripe that Waymo’s once-polite self-driving automobiles are abruptly behaving like “an aggressive, New York taxi driver,” weaving by way of tunnels in zigzags, rolling by way of stops and squeezing previous different automobiles, in line with a report.

In September, police in close by San Bruno, Calif. pulled over a Waymo after officers watched it make an unlawful U-turn — an indication of how sharply the corporate says it has reprogrammed the automobiles to be extra “confidently assertive.”

When cops approached the offending self-driving automobile, a Waymo operator’s voice started talking to them, in line with the Wall Road Journal.

“They mentioned they’d look into it,” Police Sgt. Scott Smithmatungol informed the Journal. “They had been actually, actually apologetic.”

Chris Ludwick, the senior director of product administration on the Alphabet-owned firm, informed the Journal that the corporate has wired the autos to be extra aggressive on account of the truth that its overly passive driving was disrupting visitors on San Francisco’s crowded streets.

“That was actually obligatory for us to really scale this up in San Francisco, particularly due to how busy it will get,” Ludwick informed the Journal.

Some riders say they’ll really feel the distinction.

Pacific Heights resident Jennifer Jeffries, who has logged almost 3,000 minutes in Waymos, informed the Journal the automobiles now maneuver in addition to an Uber driver, getting nearer to different autos than she expects and slipping round obstacles that when left them caught.

“They are going to go round a automobile or get nearer to a automobile than a human driver would,” Jeffries informed the Journal.

“Typically I’ll be within the again seat and I’ll be like, ‘Ooh that was actually shut.’”

However others say the newfound aggression could be jarring, together with pedestrian Marc Schreiber, who informed the Journal a Waymo started accelerating by way of a crosswalk as quickly as he cleared the entrance of the automobile.

“I used to be taken off guard,” Schreiber informed the Journal. “My subsequent thought was, oh they’ve modified the programming to be extra aggressive.”

Waymo’s Ludwick informed the Journal that its “driver is designed to respect the foundations of the street”. He mentioned its autos have logged 100 million driverless miles throughout cities together with San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin, Phoenix and Atlanta — with 91% fewer crashes involving a severe harm or worse in contrast with human drivers.

Some residents say the bolder driving is a combined bag. Pacific Heights accountant Cossette Drossler informed the Journal she’s heard of Waymos doing “California stops” — when a driver slows down at a cease signal however doesn’t come to a whole cease earlier than continuing.

Drossler mentioned she doesn’t wish to see Waymos coming to a full halt on empty neighborhood streets, but in addition isn’t certain she trusts the automobiles to guage when rolling by way of is definitely protected.

“I do California rolling stops. I grew up in San Francisco,” Drossler informed the Journal, including: “I solely do it if it’s protected.”

Waymo’s broader security report reveals an autonomous automobile program underneath rising federal scrutiny as regulators and native authorities monitor a rising variety of documented violations, software program failures and real-world mishaps.

The Nationwide Freeway Site visitors Security Administration has opened a number of investigations into the corporate’s expertise, together with an lively preliminary analysis into studies that Waymo autos drove round stopped college buses with their pink lights flashing and cease arms deployed.

Faculty districts in Austin reported 19 related violations this 12 months. A separate federal probe into sudden autonomous driving habits — together with collisions with stationary objects, lane departures and stop-signal points — was closed earlier this 12 months solely after Waymo issued two software program recollects.

The corporate has introduced a number of recollects tied to technical failures, together with software program bugs blamed for crashes involving chains, gates and utility poles, in addition to a 2024 incident involving improperly towed autos.

Waymos have additionally been concerned in collisions with fastened objects, rear-end crashes, pedestrian incidents and a number of animal strikes.

At the very least one deadly crash has occurred in a Waymo-involved incident, although investigators discovered the autonomous automobile was not at fault.

The Publish has sought remark from Waymo. 

Waymo is at the moment selecting up paying passengers in a number of US metro areas, together with Phoenix, the San Francisco Bay Space, Los Angeles, Austin and Atlanta, and has begun totally autonomous operations in extra cities equivalent to Miami because it prepares broader service launches in 2026.

The corporate can be testing in additional than a dozen different cities — together with New York, Minneapolis, Seattle, Las Vegas and Philadelphia — the place autos function in mapping or supervised-autonomy modes forward of potential business rollout. Waymo will not be selecting up passengers in these cities as of but.