Can driverless cars get tickets? What happened when Bay Area police pulled over a Waymo
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Police in San Bruno, Calif., were patrolling for drunk drivers when they observed a car traveling erratically.
But this couldn’t be chalked up to an impaired or distracted driver. There wasn’t anyone behind the wheel at all.
Officers were bewildered to see the car — a self-driving Waymo robotaxi — make an illegal U-turn at a traffic light right in front of them, the San Bruno Police Department said in a social media post Saturday.
“It was a first for both officers,” the department wrote in the post, which included photos of an officer peering through the front window at the empty driver’s seat.
Because the car did not have a human driver, officers could not issue a ticket, police noted. Instead, officers contacted the company to let them know about the “glitch,” they said.
The self-driving taxi company Waymo launched in Los Angeles in November, bringing roughly 100 autonomous vehicles to neighborhoods from Santa Monica to West Hollywood.
“Hopefully the reprogramming will keep it from making any more illegal moves,” police said.
The incident highlights a gap in California law for the hundreds of autonomous vehicles roaming the streets of Los Angeles and San Francisco.
When self-driving cars violate the rules of the road, law enforcement can’t penalize them the same way that they can humans. The way state law has been interpreted, traffic tickets can be issued only to an actual driver.
California lawmakers have sought to close the enforcement loophole with legislation that will take effect in July, but critics say the law isn’t strong enough.
Waymo spokesperson Julia Ilina said that the company’s vehicles are already subject to close, ongoing oversight by California regulators, and that the company’s autonomous driving system “is designed to respect the rules of the road.”
Some Santa Monica residents are protesting two new Waymo charging stations using unconventional means, including ‘Stacking the Waymos.’
“We are looking into this situation and are committed to improving road safety through our ongoing learnings and experience,” Ilina said.
The new law, Assembly Bill 1777, was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last year and will allow law enforcement agencies to report instances of autonomous vehicle “noncompliance” to the Department of Motor Vehicles. The DMV is hashing out the specifics, including potential penalties.
The law in its original form would have allowed self-driving cars to be ticketed for traffic violations, but it was watered down with amendments late in the legislative process.
Among the law’s loudest critics is the Teamsters union, which has said the law takes California “backward.”
“I bet everyday Californians wish that, when they made a mistake driving, they got a courtesy note instead of an expensive ticket,” Peter Finn, the Western region vice president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, told Mission Local last year.
The autonomous ride-hailing company Waymo will expand its service area in Los Angeles for the second time this year.
The union has pushed for more oversight of self-driving vehicles, such as legislation mandating human operators in autonomous heavy-duty trucks and other delivery vehicles.
California’s tack is less heavy-handed than that of Arizona or Texas, two other states with a notable autonomous vehicle presence. Both states updated their laws years ago to allow officers to issue citations to the registered owner of the vehicle, even if no human is present.
Self-driving vehicles have sparked safety concerns and drawn scrutiny at times, including after a 2023 incident in which a pedestrian was seriously injured by a Cruise vehicle.
Several issues with Tesla’s autonomous technology have also garnered criticism, with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opening an investigation into the company after four collisions — including one that killed a pedestrian — occurred while drivers allowed their cars to pilot themselves in low-visibility conditions including fog, airborne dust and sun glare.
Waymo, which is owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet, says its vehicles are making cities safer, with its cars less accident-prone than those operated by humans.
Based on data collected by Waymo as of June, their driverless vehicles in the four cities they operate had 79% fewer airbag-deployment crashes and 80% fewer injury-causing crashes than traditional vehicles driving the same distance.
