Worse Than (Most) Humans: Driverless Waymo Taxi Disrupts First Responders at Active Fire Scene

An autonomous Waymo taxi took a wrong turn and drive straight into an active fire scene in Los Angeles, California.

A driverless Waymo vehicle turned onto Melrose Avenue in Hollywood and past road flares, finding itself in the midst of an active fire scene earlier this week, according to a report by ABC 7.

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The robotaxi reportedly drove into an area that the Los Angeles Fire Department had blocked off, and appeared to have one passenger in the backseat.

Witnesses told the outlet that the Waymo car stayed inside the closed area of the fire scene for about ten minutes before making a U-turn and driving away.

This is not the first time a driverless Waymo car has violated traffic orders. In fact, the autonomous vehicles are becoming notorious for erratic driving in cities where they are allowed to operate.

A few months ago, a Waymo car was caught on camera illegally passing a school bus in Atlanta, Georgia, with video footage taken on a woman’s cellphone showing the vehicle passing a school that had its stop sign out and lights flashing as children were exiting the bus.

Over the summer, Waymo cars created a traffic jam and honked at each other in the pre-dawn hours in a parking lot in San Francisco, waking up local residents, with many reporting the 4:00 a.m. incident as a regular occurrence for the driverless vehicles.

Waymo cars have also become the subject of online ridicule as social media users share videos documenting the cars’ bizarre behavior and frustrating experiences.

Breitbart News previously reported that Waymo’s co-CEO believes humans will accept traffic fatalities caused by driverless cars as the price of societal advancement:

During an onstage discussion with TechCrunch’s transportation editor Kirsten Korosec at the annual Disrupt conference in San Francisco, Tekedra Mawakana, Co-CEO of Waymo, addressed the hypothetical scenario of a fatal crash involving a self-driving car. Despite the company’s unwavering focus on safety, Mawakana acknowledged that achieving perfection in autonomous vehicle technology is unlikely. When asked if society would accept a death caused by a robotaxi, Mawakana responded, “I think that society will.” She emphasized the importance of holding companies to a high safety standard and maintaining transparency about their crash records. Mawakana pointed to Waymo’s “hub” of safety information on its website as an example of the company’s commitment to openness. While self-driving car companies like Waymo claim they will dramatically reduce crashes, Mawakana admitted that they will not eliminate them entirely. “We have to be in this open and honest dialogue about the fact that we know it’s not perfection,” she said. The company actively plans for the possibility of fatal crashes, with Mawakana stating, “We really worry as a company about those days. You know, we don’t say ‘whether.’ We say ‘when.’ And we plan for them.”

Breitbart News will continue to report on driverless cars including those from Waymo and Elon Musk’s Tesla.

Alana Mastrangelo is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Facebook and X at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.