Journalist Alarmed When His Waymo Barges Into Path of Presidential Motorcade
Futurism ·
"I realized my vehicle was potentially obstructing the president of the United States." The post Journalist Alarmed When His Waymo Barges Into Path of Presidential Motorcade appeared first on Futurism .
Waymo robotaxis seem to get into accidents far less often than human motorists do. ( According to the company’s self-reported data , that is actually the case.) But that doesn’t mean they’re anywhere close to flawless drivers. In fact, they’re horrible improvisers.
Just ask the journalist Joe Miller, who recalls in the Financial Times how his Waymo barged into a roadway cleared for the presidential motorcade, after it couldn’t follow the directions given by beleaguered police officers.
“I was 10 minutes into my first trip in a driverless car when I realized my vehicle was potentially obstructing the president of the United States,” Mill wrote.
Miller was staying in Dallas, where Waymo has been testing its cars since last year, and recently open its service up to the public. Rushing his way to the Republic midterm convention, he decided to hop into one of the self-driving cars. It was driving without a hitch until it stopped at an intersection where police were diverting cars — and “my autonomous chaffeur was refusing to obey,” Miller recalled.
Writes Miller: “‘Tell the Waymo it needs to go to the right,’ bellowed the officer who stood in front of me. I was not sure to whom, or to what, I could communicate this, but sheepishly relayed his command out loud inside the car. There was no response. The Waymo kept pumping out soft jazz, indifferent to my appeals.”
Miller pressed the “call support” button in the car expecting an immediate answer, but he was left waiting. The cops discussed what to do, “growing more irate by the second,” and eventually the Waymo was the only civilian car left on the entire road. That’s when he realized that the reason the cops were agitated was because president Donald Trump, or a member of his cabinet, was due to arrive at the Republican convention.
As if on cue, a Secret Service agent showed up.
Miller: ‘”I need this vehicle to be out of here NOW, or it will be crushed,’ [the agent] barked through the closed passenger window, strongly implying that I was somehow to blame.”
When a Waymo support employee finally answered, their suggestion to tell everyone to back ten feet away from the car (a big ask of people running presidential security) didn’t work. So Miller got out of the and left. When he looked back, he saw the robotaxi “finally start to crawl forward with its hazard lights on.”
Later, Waymo apologized for the incident and explained that the vehicle software had apparently understood the police’s hand gestures to divert the car, but since the maneuver required turning across multiple lanes of traffic, it froze in place because it was programmed to wait for remote assistance.
This is far from the first time something like this has happened. Waymos have been spotted driving the wrong way down streets, hopping onto light trail tracks , and barging through police standoffs and taped off crime scenes .
These are bumps in the road that Waymo will have to “continually refine,” in the words of a Waymo spokesperson who reached out to Miller.
“And we’ll continue to improve ahead of operating in environments where these situations are more common,” the spokesperson added.
There’s less room for error — and a lower likelihood of forgiveness — when it comes to mucking up government motorcades, though. Miller, on this note, points out how Waymo soon plans to expand to Washington DC, where “impromptu diversions for passing VIPs are indeed ‘more common.'”
“The company might want to consider fine-tuning its vehicles’ ability to navigate motorcades before they are deployed here,” he concluded.
More on self-driving cars: Tesla Instructs Firefighters to Call Two Separate Support Hotlines in the Event of a Robotaxi Accident
The post Journalist Alarmed When His Waymo Barges Into Path of Presidential Motorcade appeared first on Futurism .