A passenger bailed from his Waymo robotaxi as the vehicle drove dangerously close to an oncoming railcar.
Viral footage of the incident, which took place last Wednesday, shows the car blundering down a stretch of light rail tracks in Phoenix, Arizona, as if it were an actual motorist lane it was supposed to be driving in. The passenger, smelling trouble, exits the car during one of its random stops without looking back.
“Oh get out get out get out!” the bystander taking the footage can be heard saying. Moments later, a railcar a few hundred yards directly behind the Waymo can be briefly seen beginning to pull out from the station.
But the Waymo’s antics weren’t over yet. After driving again, it then suddenly stops as another railcar comes lumbering down the opposing pair of tracks, while the one behind it appears unsure of whether to proceed. Piling one bad decision on top of another, the robotaxi decides to start reversing, but doesn’t leave the track before the video ends.
@Waymo what happened here? passenger said im out #waymo #fyp #fail #tiktokfail #funny
A Valley Metro spokesperson said that Waymo was notified about the incident after an employee noticed the baffling spectacle.
“At approximately 9 a.m. on Wednesday morning, a Valley Metro employee observed an autonomous Waymo vehicle on the northbound light rail tracks near Southern Avenue and Central Avenue in Phoenix,” the spokesperson said, as quoted by local news station KTVK. “Light rail operations staff responded to the scene, and Waymo was contacted. To minimize service impacts, northbound and southbound trains exchanged passengers before reversing direction to continue service.”
Waymo robotaxis, despite touting an impressive safety record, have been known to get into all kinds of bizarre traffic contretemps, many of them dangerous. The cars have been caught driving on the wrong side of the road, getting stuck in roundabouts, blowing through police standoffs, and ignoring stopped school buses. The company also faced intense outrage after one of its self-driving cabs ran over and killed a beloved bodega cat in San Francisco.
Scrutiny into the robotaxis’ safety and capabilities is higher than ever after seemingly its entire fleet went haywire during a power outage in the Bay Area last month, plunging the streets of San Francisco into chaos as the rudderless cabs piled up at intersections and blocked traffic.
Andrew Maynard, an emerging and transformative technology professor at Arizona State University, dismissed the latest Waymo incident as an edge case.
“I actually felt a little sorry for the car. It obviously made a bad decision and got itself in a difficult place,” Maynard told KTVK. “This is exactly one of those edge cases, what we call them. Something unexpected where the machine drove like a machine rather than a person.”
Waymo has not made a statement about the incident.
More on self-driving vehicles: Driverless Delivery Vans in China Are Rampaging Through Cities Like Grand Theft Auto
The post Video Shows Passenger Bail From Waymo in Path of Oncoming Train appeared first on Futurism.
