"unable to issue citation to computer" is about the stupidest and laziest police response I have ever heard. I am beyond upset about this. It's obvious they could issue a citation and send it to the address on the registration of the car, which is certainly Waymo or a company that could forward it to Waymo.<p>If my parked car gets a ticket, they put it on the windshield. It's not some stupid response like "unable to issue citation to car with no one in it." Since the window was open, they could also tape it on the dash or put it on the driver's seat.<p>There is no reason why Waymo should not get a citation and be forced to appear in court to explain themselves, just like everyone else. That is why the courts exist. But lazy cops seem to prevent this from happening.
I'm fairly skeptical on driverless cars but it's hard to say what the deal is here - I see plenty of humans end up in the wrong lane around construction zones, too. Obviously we want these things to be better than humans, but it'd be nice to know if this was just the sort of mistake we see humans commonly make here, or if it was egregious.<p>Dashcam footage of what the car actually did would be pretty helpful in understanding what actually happened.
Unless I missed something, there's no clarity in the article about whether or not Waymo eventually got issued a citation. But I also couldn't watch the full video without being bombarded by ads and audio that started running headless in the background.
Tickets are supposed to be a deterrent to violating traffic laws. For a corporation though, even a big ticket is just a drop in the bucket. Laws will need to be updated if these things are allowed to be on the streets.
The fundamental problem of AI cars--they have a set of rules rather than common sense. They will fare far worse than humans when given impossible directions.
How is the in-car audio call between Waymo and the police initiated? I would want it to automatically initiate shortly after being pulled over. That would be easiest for emergency services. It would also assure for the passenger and be a way to give the passenger instructions, if needed. The downside would be cost to Waymo to staff a potentially unnecessary call.
Can’t wait for the first felony/high risk stop executed against a waymo, should lead to some good body cam footage (and hopefully nobody gets shot)