"A driverless vehicle was stopped in the area while our crews were responding to this morning's shooting, and it did briefly interfere with access for one ambulance. The officer in the video followed established protocol to address the situation and was able to quickly move the vehicle so ATCEMS units could proceed."
"In footage of the incident circulating online, a Waymo cab is seen straddling the width of a street, preventing an EMS vehicle with its lights flashing from passing. Instead of clearing a path, the cab fidgets in place, before the ambulance driver decides to reverse out and take a different route."
"Waymo has been suffering a bit of a bad streak of PR in recent months, and this latest blunder will only raise additional questions about the ability of robotaxis to respond to unpredictable road scenarios that fall outside their typical training, especially as Waymo is considered a leader in the autonomous vehicle space."
A Waymo robotaxi obstructed an ambulance's path while emergency responders rushed to a mass shooting scene in Austin, Texas. The autonomous vehicle remained stationary across the street width, preventing the EMS vehicle from passing. After several minutes of inaction, an officer moved the vehicle to a parking garage, allowing the ambulance to proceed via an alternate route. Waymo declined to comment on the incident. This incident compounds recent negative publicity for the company, including December's malfunction of multiple Waymo vehicles during a San Francisco power outage, raising questions about autonomous vehicles' ability to handle unpredictable emergency scenarios.
Read at Futurism
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