A self-driving Waymo vehicle blocked a trolley in San Francisco after it stopped in the middle of an intersection and failed to move, as shown in a viral TikTok video.
Waymo has been operating autonomous ride-hailing services in San Francisco since 2022, and the company expanded to fully driverless rides for the public in August 2023.
The city has since reported multiple incidents involving stalled autonomous vehicles affecting traffic, including cases where cars blocked intersections or emergency vehicles.
New viral footage showed the autonomous car stalled on the tracks while a trolley was stuck waiting behind it. Passengers in the vehicle were forced to call Waymo rider support to report the issue.
Waymo stops on tracks with trolley waiting behind
“We are currently blocking a train,” one rider told the support agent, who responded that the situation would be escalated. The agent explained that Waymo’s team can “provide suggestions to the car” remotely, though the vehicle continues to operate autonomously.
While the support agent worked to get the car out of the way, the trolley operator got out of the train to tried to wave it away.
The clip, uploaded by ‘miajajah’ went viral and has amassed over 5.4M views since being posted in early November.
This isn’t the first Waymo-related situation to make waves on social media over the last month, either. On October 16, 23-year-old software engineer Riley Walz jammed a San Francisco street with 50 of the driverless taxis.
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