Several of Waymo’s autonomous vehicles were seen stuck in the middle of San Francisco streets following a significant power outage that took out the city’s traffic lights. Waymo responded to the power outage by suspending its ride-hailing services in the city, but images and videos on social media showed the self-driving taxis stopped at intersections with hazard lights on.
“We have temporarily suspended our ride-hailing services in the San Francisco Bay Area due to the widespread power outage,” Suzanne Philion, a spokesperson for Waymo, told Engadget in an email. “Our teams are working diligently and in close coordination with city officials, and we are hopeful to bring our services back online soon.”
Even ignoring the police officers, aren’t there clear rules for what to do when traffic lights are turned off?
In Germany, an inactive traffic light means that traffic control reverts to any present traffic signs (stop/yield/priority road). If none are present, the default rules for entering an intersection apply (which in Germany are to yield to any traffic coming from your right).
All of those rules already must be implemented for autonomous driving so why the hell couldn’t they implement a hierarchy?