Driverless Waymo car gets stuck on Roosevelt Street, blocking traffic
A Waymo driverless car stopped for no apparent reason in the middle of Roosevelt Street in downtown Phoenix during Wednesday’s morning commute.
At one point, a line of cars waited, before noticing the car had no driver and was headed nowhere. The incident occurred in a busy section of Roosevelt Row, between Third and Fourth streets, in front of Jobot Coffee & Bar.
The Waymo vehicle blocked the one-and-only lane heading east. To get around, drivers steered into the left turn lane. For a second, at about 7 a.m., the car lurched forward, its emergency lights flashing, and then stopped again.
The incident comes three months after another Waymo driverless vehicle clogged traffic during rush hour in San Francisco. Phoenix and San Francisco are the first two cities to allow Waymo’s driverless taxi service to roam freely around the cities.
We’ve reached out to Waymo for comment on the Roosevelt incident.
Multiple social media reports of stuck and stalled Waymo cars
This Tuesday, a driverless Waymo vehicle blocked the path of a fire truck in San Francisco's Glen Park neighborhood. Waymo told KRON the narrow street prevented the car from making room for the truck and "remote assistance teams" were working on resolving the situation when "the fire truck moved along and our vehicle continued on its trip."
Earlier in April, a video of a cluster of stuck Waymo cars made the rounds on social media, including Tiktok. The incident also happened downtown.
Waymo released a statement to 12News: "At around 8 pm April 7, multiple Waymo vehicles encountered a situation prompting them to stop on First St in Downtown Phoenix. As safety is central to our mission, our autonomous driving technology prioritizes the safest driving path with the information it has at any given moment."
The statement said the company had identified the software that contributed to the situation and issued updates to its fleet.
In January, a Waymo car got stuck at a San Francisco intersection, 19th Avenue and Ulloa Street in the Inner Sunset. A Waymo spokesperson issued a statement to SFGate.com, saying the vehicle stopped after entering “a very complex and busy intersection,” due to “unexpected temporary road closures.”
“Traffic was backed up all the way to Crossover Drive in Golden Gate Park, according to one driver at the scene, as cars navigated their way around the stuck Waymo,” SFGate reported.
On Roosevelt Street early Wednesday, there was no road construction and nothing out of the ordinary. Just scooters zooming around, joggers, a long line of cars and a Phoenix school district bus driver steering into the left lane to avoid the driverless Waymo.
A special Waymo assistance team eventually moved the stuck Waymo out of the way in San Francisco.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Driverless Waymo car gets stuck on Phoenix street, blocking traffic
