Can driverless cars get tickets? What happened when Bay Area police pulled over a Waymo

Police successful San Bruno, Calif., were patrolling for drunk drivers erstwhile they observed a car traveling erratically.

But this couldn’t beryllium chalked up to an impaired oregon distracted driver. There wasn’t anyone down the instrumentality astatine all.

Officers were bewildered to spot the car — a self-driving Waymo robotaxi — marque an amerciable U-turn astatine a postulation airy close successful beforehand of them, the San Bruno Police Department said successful a societal media station Saturday.

“It was a archetypal for some officers,” the section wrote successful the post, which included photos of an serviceman peering done the beforehand model astatine the bare driver’s seat.

Because the car did not person a quality driver, officers could not contented a ticket, constabulary noted. Instead, officers contacted the institution to fto them cognize astir the “glitch,” they said.

“Hopefully the reprogramming volition support it from making immoderate much amerciable moves,” constabulary said.

The incidental highlights a spread successful California instrumentality for the hundreds of autonomous vehicles roaming the streets of Los Angeles and San Francisco.

When self-driving cars interruption the rules of the road, instrumentality enforcement can’t penalize them the aforesaid mode that they tin humans. The mode authorities instrumentality has been interpreted, postulation tickets tin beryllium issued lone to an existent driver.

California lawmakers person sought to adjacent the enforcement loophole with authorities that volition instrumentality effect successful July, but critics accidental the instrumentality isn’t beardown enough.

Waymo spokesperson Julia Ilina said that the company’s vehicles are already taxable to close, ongoing oversight by California regulators, and that the company’s autonomous driving strategy “is designed to respect the rules of the road.”

“We are looking into this concern and are committed to improving roadworthy information done our ongoing learnings and experience,” Ilina said.

The caller law, Assembly Bill 1777, was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom past twelvemonth and volition let instrumentality enforcement agencies to study instances of autonomous conveyance “noncompliance” to the Department of Motor Vehicles. The DMV is hashing retired the specifics, including imaginable penalties.

The instrumentality successful its archetypal signifier would person allowed self-driving cars to beryllium ticketed for postulation violations, but it was watered down with amendments precocious successful the legislative process.

Among the law’s loudest critics is the Teamsters union, which has said the instrumentality takes California “backward.”

“I stake mundane Californians privation that, erstwhile they made a mistake driving, they got a courtesy enactment alternatively of an costly ticket,” Peter Finn, the Western portion vice president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, told Mission Local past year.

The national has pushed for much oversight of self-driving vehicles, specified arsenic authorities mandating quality operators successful autonomous heavy-duty trucks and different transportation vehicles.

California’s tack is little heavy-handed than that of Arizona oregon Texas, 2 different states with a notable autonomous conveyance presence. Both states updated their laws years agone to let officers to contented citations to the registered proprietor of the vehicle, adjacent if nary quality is present.

Self-driving vehicles person sparked information concerns and drawn scrutiny astatine times, including aft a 2023 incidental successful which a pedestrian was earnestly injured by a Cruise vehicle.

Several issues with Tesla’s autonomous exertion person besides garnered criticism, with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opening an probe into the institution aft 4 collisions — including 1 that killed a pedestrian — occurred portion drivers allowed their cars to aviator themselves successful low-visibility conditions including fog, airborne particulate and prima glare.

Waymo, which is owned by Google’s genitor company, Alphabet, says its vehicles are making cities safer, with its cars little accident-prone than those operated by humans.

Based connected information collected by Waymo arsenic of June, their driverless vehicles successful the 4 cities they run had 79% less airbag-deployment crashes and 80% less injury-causing crashes than accepted vehicles driving the aforesaid distance.