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Like a klutz on an obstacle course, a Tesla Robotaxi with no safety driver seemingly panicked after taking a wrong turn and plowed through a row of bollards, those springy traffic barriers that you are not supposed to run down.
The incident was captured in a video uploaded Monday to the r/SelfDrivingCars subreddit and first spotted by Electrek. It was taken by a rider sitting in the front passenger seat, who sounded progressively more concerned as it dawned on him what the Robotaxi was trying to do.
“It’s going through bollards,” the passenger says, as the car inches towards the barriers.
In the video, it appears the self-driving Tesla drove into a curb extension delineated by plastic bollards, thinking it was a right turn lane. But once it tried to turn onto the next street, it realized it was hemmed in.
“There’s bollards right here. You can’t go this way,” the passenger exhorts the cab. “Don’t do that!”
The vehicle clearly recognizes the obstacles in the way and freezes in place for around a minute, occasionally fidgeting with the steering wheel and pulsing the brakes. Instead of reversing out, though, it eventually decides on a drastic course of action: driving straight through the bollards.
Luckily for everyone involved, the barriers were the flimsy plastic kind; otherwise, this might’ve ended up being fodder for the World Bollard Association.
The passenger, in any case, was in disbelief.
“It ran through the bollards,” he said. “Holy sh*t.”
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