{"id":267892,"date":"2025-10-01T01:06:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T01:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/267892\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T01:06:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T01:06:15","slug":"police-in-northern-california-stop-driverless-waymo-taxi-after-illegal-u-turn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/267892\/","title":{"rendered":"Police in Northern California stop driverless Waymo taxi after illegal U-turn"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>SAN FRANCISCO (AP) \u2014 Police in Northern California were understandably perplexed when they pulled over a Waymo taxi after it made an illegal U-turn, only to find no driver behind the wheel and therefore, no one to ticket. <\/p>\n<p>The San Bruno Police Department wrote in now viral weekend social media posts that officers were conducting a DUI operation early Saturday morning when a self-driving Waymo made the illegal turn in front of them. <\/p>\n<p>Officers stopped the vehicle, but declined to write a ticket as their \u201ccitation books don\u2019t have a box for \u2018robot\u2019.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s right \u2026 no driver, no hands, no clue,\u201d read the post, which was accompanied by photos of an officer peering into the car. <\/p>\n<p>Officers contacted Waymo to report what they called a \u201cglitch,\u201d and in the post, they said they hope reprogramming will deter more illegal moves. <\/p>\n<p>The department\u2019s Facebook post has generated more than 500 comments, with many people outraged that police didn\u2019t ticket the company. People also wanted to know how police got the car to pull over.<\/p>\n<p>But San Bruno Sgt. Scott Smithmatungol said they can only ticket a human driver or operator for a moving violation, unlike parking tickets that can be left with the vehicle. <\/p>\n<p>A new state law that kicks in next year will allow police to report moving violations to the Department of Motor Vehicles, which is figuring out the specifics, including potential penalties, the <a class=\"Link AnClick-LinkEnhancement\" data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/business\/technology\/story\/2025-09-30\/can-driverless-cars-get-tickets-what-happened-when-bay-area-police-pulled-over-a-waymo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Los Angeles Times reports<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>Waymo spokesperson Julia Ilina told the LA Times that the company\u2019s autonomous driving system is closely monitored by regulators. \u201cWe are looking into this situation and are committed to improving road safety through our ongoing learnings and experience,\u201d Ilina said.<\/p>\n<p>Waymos currently operate in Phoenix, Los Angeles and San Francisco and in areas south of the city, including the suburb of San Bruno. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt blew up a lot bigger than we thought,\u201d Smithmatungol said of the viral post to The Associated Press on Tuesday. \u201cWe\u2019re not a large agency like San Francisco.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>San Bruno has about 40,000 residents and a sworn police force of 50 officers, he said. <\/p>\n<p>Waymo is owned by Google\u2019s parent company, Alphabet. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO (AP) \u2014 Police in Northern California were understandably perplexed when they pulled over a Waymo taxi&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":267893,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,276,57,139571,2936,15228,2750,139570,345,158,29736,61,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-267892","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-general-news","11":"tag-julia-ilina","12":"tag-law-enforcement","13":"tag-oddities","14":"tag-san-francisco","15":"tag-scott-smithmatungol","16":"tag-social-media","17":"tag-technology","18":"tag-transportation-technology","19":"tag-u-s-news","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115296232055654487","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}