First Responders Say Waymos Is Getting Worse

Emergency responders told officials in a private meeting last month that he was disappointed with the way they handled it autonomous vehicles on their roads – that city firefighters, police, EMTs, and paramedics are forced to spend emergency time solving problems with frozen or frozen vehicles. A fire official called it “a safety issue for our workers and those involved.” WIRED obtained transcripts of the meeting.

The principals of San Francisco and Austin, where That’s it has been transporting people without drivers for more than a year, he said traffic is getting worse. “We are seeing something interesting: a reversal of some of the changes,” Mary Ellen Carroll, director of the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management, told officials of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which oversees the safety of self-driving cars in the US. “They are giving themselves up traffic violations.”

“We’ve seen behavior that we haven’t seen in several years … Waymo is often now blocking our fire stations from access,” added Chief Patrick Rabbitt, chief of the San Francisco Fire Department. “Their choice is to freeze.” The situation could prevent fire engines from responding to emergencies “in a timely and appropriate manner”, he said.

In Austin, first responders are often replaced by Waymos “in the cold,” said Lieutenant William White, head of the Austin Police Department’s Highway Enforcement Command. White said, contrary to what Waymo told first responders, vehicles often fail to recognize or respond to police hand signals, which can cause temporary delays during accidents or unusual traffic situations.

“I believe the technology was deployed too quickly, with hundreds of vehicles, when it wasn’t ready,” White said. NHTSA did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment.

The complaints come as Waymo begins an ambitious expansion across the US and the rest of the world. Today, the company offers self-driving tours in some areas of 10 US cities, and plans to launch services in another 10 before the end of the year, including London. Waymo said last month that it now provides 500,000 paid rides each week—a number that still dwarfs that of human-driven hail services (Uber provides about 400 each week) but has grown tenfold since last year.

But these comments from cities where the project is already working threaten to delay the rollout of driverless technology, which, according to Waymo datareduce fatal accidents compared to human-driven vehicles. Waymo is already facing political opposition, particularly from organized labor, in several dense, blue-collar, and profitable cities, including Boston, New York City, Seattle, and Washington, DC.

In a statement, Waymo spokeswoman Julia Ilina wrote: “We deeply value our partnership with first responders and our commitment to safety. The company says it has trained more than 35,000 people around the country.

Public Comment Times

The comments made in the private meeting are less clear than the public statements of government officials. But they reflect the temporary and occasional frustration that city leaders have expressed since late last year. Since autonomous vehicle services are regulated in California and Texas by the state rather than city officials, first responder departments and their representatives can request that manufacturers such as Waymo change their operations.

On Wednesday, first responders in Austin appeared before the City Council to discuss Waymo’s response to what happened last month when a driverless car blocked an ambulance for two minutes that was responding to a shooting in the center of the city, which killed three people and injured at least 14. They reiterated that Waymos does not always respond properly when given hand signals, especially by police on motorcycles.

Waymo refused to attend the meeting, and the two front seats marked “RESERVED FOR: WAYMO” remained empty for the entire two-hour period.