I was 10 minutes into my first trip in a driverless car when I realised my vehicle was potentially obstructing the president of the United States.
Late for a press conference on the sidelines of the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, I called one of the autonomous Waymos that I had seen gliding past my hotel. At first, the climate-controlled Jaguar purred serenely through the downtown traffic. Then, in the midst of a fast-flowing six-lane avenue, it came to an abrupt halt. The problem, it became apparent, was that police officers in the intersection ahead were diverting cars — with vigorous arm signals — to the right. My autonomous chauffeur was refusing to obey.
“Tell the Waymo it needs to go to the right,” bellowed the officer who stood in front of me. I was not sure to whom, or to what, I could communicate this, but sheepishly relayed his command out loud inside the car. There was no response. The Waymo kept pumping out soft jazz, indifferent to my appeals.
Unpanicked, I pressed the “call support” button on the display, assuming it would be answered in real time. The phone rang for what seemed like an eternity, with the officers in front of me growing more irate by the second. One further back suggested to her colleague that the Waymo was not budging because he was standing directly in front of it. He moved, but the car did not, presumably determined not to disobey the traffic lights, which had turned red.
By now, my Waymo was the lone civilian vehicle on the road and it dawned on me that the officers’ urgency might be due to the imminent arrival of a motorcade containing the convention’s headline act, Donald Trump, or a member of his cabinet. This was soon confirmed by the arrival of a Secret Service agent, wearing a black suit and a darker expression. “I need this vehicle to be out of here NOW, or it will be crushed,” he barked through the closed passenger window, strongly implying that I was somehow to blame.
At this point, the support line was answered by a distinctly unhurried voice who suggested moving everyone 10ft away from the perimeter of the car — a suggestion that the US Secret Service did not take kindly to. In any event, it made no difference.
I had seen enough. Against the advice of my remote interlocutor, I unbuckled my seatbelt, pushed the passenger door open, and fled into the 38C Dallas heat. Behind me, the agents continued to remonstrate with the recalcitrant vehicle. I looked back one last time to see the car, flanked by officers, finally start to crawl forward with its hazard lights on.
After making it to the conference centre, this time with an Uber under human control, I received a call from a Waymo representative. It was, they said, “not really the experience that we wanted you to have”.
The company’s press office later provided a more fulsome account of what went wrong. Apparently, the car had recognised and understood the officers’ hand gestures, but because the diversion required turning right across multiple lanes of traffic, it was programmed to wait for remote assistance. Said assistance was activated within seven seconds but was escalated to a team that deals with emergency personnel — hence the delay.
It’s not clear how often Waymo is involved in stand-offs with the Secret Service, but its safety record is significantly better than human drivers. The cars are active in more than 15 major US cities and, while it has filed over 1,000 incident reports with regulators, most of them are minor scrapes.
“We continually refine our technology’s performance to more seamlessly handle these types of scenarios,” a Waymo spokesperson said of my experience. “And we’ll continue to improve ahead of operating in environments where these situations are more common.”
Looking up Waymo’s expansion plans, I learnt one of its next targets is my home city, Washington DC, where impromptu diversions for passing VIPs are indeed “more common”. The company might want to consider fine-tuning its vehicles’ ability to navigate motorcades before they are deployed here.
Said assistance was activated within seven seconds but was escalated to a team that deals with emergency personnel — hence the delay.
Shouldn’t emergency escalation be an immediate response, rather than a delay? Do they not have enough people to handle the amount of emergencies they receive?
Sounds to me like the police and secret service were much of the problem here (big surprise). Even if you have no regard for your fellow man, barking orders is a bad way to get things done. Solving problems requires calm.
I remember a time when I repeatedly stalled my car because the person behind me kept blasting the horn and gesticulating at me.
I feel that abandoning your car at an intersection and fleeing the scene in front of armed officers as a presidential drive by was about to arrive - in Dallas of all places - could have had far worse consequences.
Law enforcement yelling at a powerless customer while the responsible people sit obliviously in an office thousands of miles away. What a perfect microcosm of our times.
helicoptors are a much more dangerous way to travel though? this is already true in the best of times/when you aren't anticipating a possible attack on the passengers.
As opposed to what?... Floor it? Just stopping is the safe default* that should be practiced by more human drivers, too.
*) In the general case especially within cities. There are exceptions - for example on roads with high speed limit like euro highways, where stopping for non-emergency reasons is banned anyway.
As opposed to any number of ways to provide for emergency override.
If I drive a car in the wrong manner, I am responsible.
If I just leave a car dumped somewhere on the street, unattended just like a Waymo, I am responsible.
Yet somehow Waymo and all the others are allowed to basically dump a special kind of litter all over the streets. There is no reason this has to be tolerated like there is no alternative. It's not inevitable or required or anything. It's absurd that it is allowed to happen at all in the first place.
It's absurd to ask "As opposed to what? Floor it?"
I can agree that cars should not exist. I cannot agree that cars that already exist and sadly emburden cities with their presence should not just stop and safely wait for the resolution of a road situation.
Who the hell said cars should not exist? Why should anyone care to engage with someone who just fabricates things and then acts as though the fabrication was any part of the discussion?
Full text:
Rookie. A pro would have suggested turning it off and on again.
Shouldn’t emergency escalation be an immediate response, rather than a delay? Do they not have enough people to handle the amount of emergencies they receive?
Sounds to me like the police and secret service were much of the problem here (big surprise). Even if you have no regard for your fellow man, barking orders is a bad way to get things done. Solving problems requires calm.
I remember a time when I repeatedly stalled my car because the person behind me kept blasting the horn and gesticulating at me.
I feel that abandoning your car at an intersection and fleeing the scene in front of armed officers as a presidential drive by was about to arrive - in Dallas of all places - could have had far worse consequences.
Yeah I'm not sure if I would have had the guts to get out or if I would have just curled up on the floor of the vehicle and preyed.
Law enforcement yelling at a powerless customer while the responsible people sit obliviously in an office thousands of miles away. What a perfect microcosm of our times.
Hopefully this highlights the total absurdity of the motorcade in the first place.
Just use a helicopter, block one street for the takeoff/landing
helicoptors are a much more dangerous way to travel though? this is already true in the best of times/when you aren't anticipating a possible attack on the passengers.
Or the absurdity of autonomous cars that can find themselves in situations where they don't know what to do, and so just stop?
Road vehicles stop all the time for all sorts of reasons.
Safely coming to a stop because the conditions are unexpected is the right thing to do for an autonomous car.
Slow response by exception handlers is more of a problem.
As opposed to what?... Floor it? Just stopping is the safe default* that should be practiced by more human drivers, too.
*) In the general case especially within cities. There are exceptions - for example on roads with high speed limit like euro highways, where stopping for non-emergency reasons is banned anyway.
As opposed to not existing.
As opposed to any number of ways to provide for emergency override.
If I drive a car in the wrong manner, I am responsible.
If I just leave a car dumped somewhere on the street, unattended just like a Waymo, I am responsible.
Yet somehow Waymo and all the others are allowed to basically dump a special kind of litter all over the streets. There is no reason this has to be tolerated like there is no alternative. It's not inevitable or required or anything. It's absurd that it is allowed to happen at all in the first place.
It's absurd to ask "As opposed to what? Floor it?"
I can agree that cars should not exist. I cannot agree that cars that already exist and sadly emburden cities with their presence should not just stop and safely wait for the resolution of a road situation.
Who the hell said cars should not exist? Why should anyone care to engage with someone who just fabricates things and then acts as though the fabrication was any part of the discussion?
Freezing and not moving is also a very human panic response.
Most humans, when faced with a human directing traffic, will not panic or freeze, but will just follow the directions.
I wonder if they could have manually set the car to neutral and then pushed it out of the way?
Any sort of "let the passenger take control of the vehicle" functionality would cause all kinds of chaos.
Sounds like the proper response is "my car has been disobeying me for the past 30 minutes, so crushed is fine" and then get out