Waymo Drives Right into Police Scene, and Golf Course

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Robotaxis may be much better, safer drivers than most humans — maybe — but there’s no doubt that there are still a variety of edge cases where humans would handle a situation better, and there probably always will be. The latest example is a “funny” one (in this case), but provides warnings that Waymo should take seriously and try to address.

At an intersection in which there were several police cars and one suspect, all of the police cars were on the opposite side of the intersection from where the Waymo was approaching, but the suspect was laying on the ground on the street to the left, with his vehicle there and the door open. Police had their guns aimed at the suspect on the ground. A human, like the one filming below, would know not to drive right up next to the suspect, but the Waymo didn’t have that kind of common sense. It turned left and drove slowly right past the guy laying on the ground.

You can NBC News coverage of the event and other matters in the YouTube video directly below, or you can watch the original video on Instagram below that, but note the audio makes it a NSFW watch.

This is not the first time a Waymo has driven into a police scene. I recall a similar story a couple of years ago. It seems the company needs to do a better job of programming its vehicles to avoid police cars as much as possible. That said … what if the police car is trying to pull it over? Hmm…. These are some of the odd edge cases the company still has to figure out.

On a similar note…

A couple months back, a friend of mine sent along the video above of a Waymo vehicle driving across a golf course. I was waiting for more info on how this happened, but nothing really came out about it. The account that posted this later responded to someone, “Unfortunately, we’ve learned that the vehicle was supposed to be driving onto a soccer field and completely missed the mark.” I’m still a bit confused about how this happened, but there is grass parking at many big sporting complexes, so I guess I could imagine a robotaxi driving into what it thought was a grass parking area … and ending up on a golf course? I don’t know. It’s still a bit of a mystery, but it’s got to be one of the funniest Waymo videos I’ve seen. I wonder how long it took for the car to find a road again.

To be honest, you could imagine a human driver who wasn’t paying close attention or was flustered by all the police vehicles making the mistake in the top video above, but I there’s there’s no way someone would end up driving across a gold course like that Waymo unless it was part of a movie. (Cue people sending me clips of humans driving across golf courses drunk or high….)