Vice President Gets Stuck Behind Stalled Driverless Robotaxi at San Francisco
A police officer had to intervene, jumping into the car to manually drive the robotaxi out of the way.
A motorcade carrying Vice President Harris experienced an unexpected delay late Friday night at San Francisco when it got blocked by a driverless robotaxi.
Footage from ABC7 captured the driverless car getting stuck while attempting a U-turn on California Street. To resolve the situation, a police officer had to intervene, jumping into the car to manually drive the robotaxi out of the way.
The Waymo incident is just one of many recent occurrences involving self-driving cars at San Francisco, which, until now, have been exempt from traffic citations. That exemption is set to change, however.
On Friday, Governor Newsom signed a bill allowing law enforcement to issue traffic citations to driverless car companies. While the citations won’t come with fees, companies will be required to report them to the California Department of Motor Vehicles, The Standard reported. Accumulating too many citations could result in the DMV altering or revoking the company’s permits.
The new law won’t take effect until 2026, meaning Waymo faces no immediate repercussions for causing the vice presidential motorcade to stall.
San Francisco has seen numerous issues involving driverless cars, including incidents where they have obstructed emergency responders. The problems influenced the creation of the new law, authored by Assemblyman Phil Ting.
In a related development, the driverless car company Cruise recently lost its permit to operate at San Francisco following a series of incidents, one of which involved a car dragging a pedestrian.
