Some police officers certainly take their job a little too seriously, and for a couple of cops in San Bruno, California, even robots aren’t safe. The cops were patrolling the streets in a DUI (driving under the influence) operation to catch some potential perpetrators, only they caught a self-driving Waymo robotaxi instead after noticing odd driving behavior from the vehicle. Sadly, the cops couldn’t give the driver a ticket.
The statement came from the San Bruno Police Department, which posted the weird incident on their Facebook page on September 28. According to the SBPD, one of their cops “observed something unusual: an autonomous vehicle made an illegal U-turn right in front of them at a light” during a local DUI operation. It turned out to be a robotaxi from Waymo, a sister company of Google; the cops pulled the robotaxi over to give the proper penalties.
While they couldn’t exactly give a ticket to the traffic violator since there is no driver, the police department simply issued a complaint to the company about the potential technical error, “Officers stopped the vehicle and contacted the company to let them know about the ‘glitch.‘”‘ Since there was no human driver, a ticket couldn’t be issued (our citation books don’t have a box for ‘robot‘). Hopefully, the reprogramming will keep it from making any more illegal moves,” according to SBPD.
It’s not clear exactly how Waymo has responded. SBPD has also pointed out that the penalty seems rather light, especially for a corporation, but they assured everyone that this will change in the future. “For those who believe that we are being leniant, there is legislation in the works that will allow officers to issue the company notices…” according to SBPD.
People online think the car wasn’t that smart
Meanwhile, SBPD has sworn to continue keeping the San Bruno streets safe despite some “curveball” cases like this one with the robotaxi. It was certainly a first for the officers on the scene. This kind of DUI stop and “penalty” wasn’t just the first for the officers in the area, but also appears to be one of the most notable cases of a robotaxi or self-driving vehicle getting “arrested.”
Others have complained that the SBPD or the cops who arrested the self-driving car should really have imposed a heavier penalty, such as towing the vehicle, especially since there was no driver. However, it appears the SBPD could be trying to carefully navigate a potentially expensive lawsuit from a huge tech company.
“No, no no that ticket should’ve went to the founder of the company. They should still be liable for the ticket just as we would, and when they rolled out driverless cars that should’ve been written to the driving violations should’ve been accounted for” says one Facebook user. “Why give them a break when you can write the ticket leave it in the car and tow the car away,” according to another.
Some commenters have also made fun of the technicalities, with one of them hatching a bright idea to wiggle out of cop arrests: “So can I drink legally in the car like a limo if I order Waymo?” While there are people who wonder what would happen if there were a passenger, “Imagine you order like a uber w/ automated driver. The car does something illegal, and now you got a ticket for being a passenger in it. Ahaha.”
