Waymo standoff in San Francisco goes viral, company responds

Viral Waymo standoff in San Francisco

Tik Tok user @chii_rinna posted video of a Waymo standoff in San Francisco on Dec. 6, via Storyful

SAN FRANCISCO - A trio of driverless Waymo cars involved in what's being described as a "standoff" has gone viral on social media.

TikTok user @chii_rinna posted the Dec. 6 incident, which now has more than 3 million views.

"These Waymos are causing a traffic jam," she said on her TikTok video, the hum of the robot cars buzzing in the background.

A third Waymo, traveling downhill, is unable to get through.

Then a man comes out of his garage, dubbing the white cars stuck in the middle of the street as a "Waymo standoff."

"I'm just trying to get out of here," the man said, to which @chii_rinna laughs.

"This is so funny," she says on the video, noticing the standoff occurred because the cars seemed to have hit each other.

In a followup TikTok, @chii_rinna shows that a man in a yellow vest came to address the situation.

Waymo addresses recent high profile incidents

Expert says these are growing pains for a growing industry

Waymo responds:

In a statement, Waymo officials said that while making a multi-point turn on a dead-end street, two Waymos made "minor contact at low speed."

"We are looking into this further, and when we encounter situations like this, we are able to learn from them and make improvements," a Waymo representative said.

Neighbors captured video of the ‘standoff’s' aftermath. The company responded to neighbors inquiries and said the Waymos were unoccupied.

What they're saying:

On Tuesday, residents in the South of Market neighborhood said Waymo traffic jams have been an ongoing issue.

With more Waymo and other autonomous vehicles on the road, it's not uncommon to find them acting in unexpected ways.

Several Waymo vehicles temporarily stopped traffic in both directions in SoMa on Tuesday as one of the AVs had trouble entering a garage.

"They're stuck," said Guillermo Paletto, watching the traffic back up. "Stuck all over the garage on three floors. Sometimes they're even double-parking. I mean, it's a mess."

Some people say they've been inconvenienced regularly by the new technology.

"If you have an emergency, you have to go to work, you have to go to school, you get stuck in there for 10-15 minutes," said Paletto.

In San Francisco on Monday night, one woman who was a Waymo passenger was having an emergency. She ended up having a baby inside the vehicle while on the way to a UCSF hospital. In that case, the company said the technology worked correctly and that when a remote support team member detected unusual activity, a 911 call was made. The woman ended up getting emergency services at the hospital, but the timeline of events is not totally clear.

Expert opinion:

Autonomous vehicle expert professor Billy Riggs from San Francisco State University said high-profile incidents are to be expected to some extent, since driving is such a complicated behavior.

"We're introducing a very sophisticated technology into a very complex driving environment, and these are growing pains in kind of a naturalistic environment," said Riggs.

Riggs said incidents with self-driving cars get a lot of attention due to their novelty. He said when Waymo vehicles do things like passing school buses in Texas, like we saw in affiliate footage of the incident, engineers work to patch the software, and can then immediately update every vehicle in the fleet with that new software.

Additionally, he said, with the inability for the autonomous vehicles to speed or act irresponsibly, they're safer than human drivers. "Not only much safer than humans, but actually, they actually drive in a much less distracted way," said Riggs.

KTVU reached out to San Francisco first responders, who in the past have shared concerns with autonomous vehicles. Firefighters say they're constantly evolving how they respond to incidents involving autonomous vehicles, and that self-driving car companies have a 24-hour number they can call in an emergency, so the company can take control of a vehicle if needed.

Featured