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Thousands of Waymo self-driving taxis have flooded the street of major urban centers across the country, where critics say they’ve quickly turned into a drain on city resources, with municipal agencies overrun with calls about stalled cars that block traffic or make sudden stops on busy roads.
In the latest incident, the San Antonio Police Department (SAPD) was forced to intervene after a Waymo vehicle drove into the drive-thru lane of a Whataburger — from the wrong direction.
A TikTok video recorded on Saturday shows an officer helplessly waving his arms at the driverless vehicle in an apparent attempt to get it unstuck.
“Oh nothing, just our SAPD queens trying to direct a Waymo driving the wrong way in a Whataburger drive-thru,” the TikTok user wrote mockingly.
Worst of all, as the SAPD told local news outlet MySA, the car was occupied when it drove into the drive-thru lane.
The awkward interaction once again highlights that despite Waymo claiming that its service is “fully autonomous,” its vehicles aren’t infallible. In fact, it still relies on an army of human employees in the US and the Philippines, whose job it is to intervene when vehicles get stuck.
“Officers followed the procedure provided to access the Waymo and the vehicle was manually moved,” the police department told MySA, following the Whataburger SNAFU. It’s however unclear whether a remote employee or the officer moved the vehicle.
Waymo rolled out its driverless ride-hailing service in the Texan city in February. At the time, the company ran officials through its “emergency response guide and law enforcement interaction protocol,” including how to disable autonomous driving mode and turning the vehicle off entirely.
It also provided them with a hotline to call for remote assistance, human operators who can give vehicles “additional information to contextualize its environment,” according to a 2024 blog post.
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