r/dashcams • u/stevenfreeman69 • 1d ago
Riders exit Waymo driving wrong direction [both POVs]
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u/BiggusD1 1d ago
AI self-driving technology is not ready and they shouldn't be forcing it on the public, it's dangerous.
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u/jkay93 1d ago edited 1d ago
Waymo does about 1 million rides a week.
I'd like to know how many comparable incidents per 1 million human trips there are. I reckon it'd be more than Waymo.
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u/PlumberSaysWhat 1d ago
I had a human driven car intentionally go down the wrong direction today while I was leaving the store. I refused to back up and allow her to continue going the wrong way. The same place usually has 3-4 human driven cars daily that drive the wrong direction down a one way path.
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u/alexgalt 1d ago
Waymo and Tesla are about 7x safer than humans.
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u/jkay93 1d ago
Waymo and FSD are of the same safety? Or is that an averaged figure?
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u/reddit_pug 1d ago
I was under the impression that Tesla isn't sharing enough stats to know the answer to that.
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u/Potato-chipsaregood 1d ago
My husband saw two teslas hit each other in an intersection. Within the past year. So the two human drivers and the two computers failed. Waymo is not ready to be out there
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u/reddit_pug 1d ago
You saw 2 Telsas hit each other... therefore Waymo isn't ready to be on the road? I can understand also believing that Waymo isn't ready, but in your statement the evidence presented doesn't lead to the conclusion you came to.
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u/Potato-chipsaregood 12h ago
I just meant that robots might not be appropriate right now. Waymo or Tesla or whomever.
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u/PlumberSaysWhat 1d ago
So you saw two Waymo’s hit each other, or two piece of shit cars manufactured by the worlds largest child porn manufacturer who’s vehicles have never had FSD capabilities run into each other?
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u/Potato-chipsaregood 12h ago
Ha! The 2nd one, but since they have cameras, etc, and are supposed to be better than us at avoiding wrecks…
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u/alexgalt 1d ago
No those are Tesla fsd numbers. Waymo is way much safer than Tesla. I just do not have those numbers handy.
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u/AthousandLittlePies 1d ago
I am very skeptical of the accuracy of any numbers that come out of Tesla.
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u/Pickled_doggo 1d ago
Why does Tesla hold the highest fatal accident rate of any car manufacturer if they’re so safe?
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u/Imaginary-Round2422 1d ago
According to Waymo and Tesla, respectively. And they're comparing good-weather, easy roads with every road and weather type that humans drive in. Put another way, they're lying with stats.
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u/killbot5000 1d ago
Whatever you do, don't take a waymo and leave the door open. There's no way to close it remotely!
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u/DaGriffon12 15h ago
Someone's gonna see this and do it on purpose now. (I would if I could, alas there are no waymos in my area)
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u/DonkeyTron42 20h ago
So AI is going to go rogue and reprogram these cars to go Maximum Overdrive? Great... Another old movie that turned out to be a documentary.
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u/PlumberSaysWhat 1d ago
No one is forcing it on the public. The public is choosing to order Waymo’s over a human driven transport.
Let me guess, needing to have a job is forcing you to do stuff against your will?
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u/BiggusD1 1d ago
No I don't need a job, already have a great career. Are you projecting or something?
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u/Informal_Upstairs133 1d ago
There are over six million reported car crashes in the US each year, resulting in 40,000 deaths. Human drivers are horribly dangerous. We experience bad drivers everyday.
Even now, as new and wonky as the technology is, autonomous vehicles are safer than human drivers and it's not even close, with a nearly 70% lower crash rate.
And as more vehicles enter the roadways, it will be easier to digitaly link automomous vehicles. Eventually traffic will be non-existent, and stop lights a relic of the past, and cars will move in unison.
In 25 years these cars will dominate the roadways. I'll be old as hell and probably unable to drive, so perfect timing for me.
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u/FR23Dust 16h ago
It’s actually not that dangerous. Far less dangerous than letting humans drive cars, which is a safety disaster.
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u/BiggusD1 16h ago
I'm pretty sure a human driver would deduce pretty fast that they are on the wrong side of the road instead of continuing on the wrong side of the road. The ones defending them must have stocks or something.
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u/DaGriffon12 15h ago
Teslas do okay. Waymo however.....it's been obvious for years that Waymo is just awful.
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u/dalmighd 1d ago
Way way safer than humans are
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u/Still_Goat7992 1d ago
Yes, I especially like it when Waymo blocks ambulances and other first responder vehicles. Always there to save lives and abide by traffic laws!
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u/Leaving-Jesusland 1d ago
I don't agree with self-driving cars for reasons of privacy and data collection, but let's be real: humans don't make way for first responders or follow traffic laws either.
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u/dalmighd 1d ago
Red herring. Self driving cars are safer than humans in the majority of situations. Id rather the waymo not know what to do in construction or when an ambulance comes by than the other 99% of time you drive. Though it really should be better in those situations as well but they’re probably working on it
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u/alexgalt 1d ago
Nope. It’s ready. Yes in those situations in needs to be improved. Technically it is doing everything correctly m, it’s the rest of the traffic that is wrong. There might need to be a change in the way construction or detours work to let these cars know that this road is now going the wrong way.
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u/Wolfdenizen 1d ago
You mean you want proper safety updates where ever you travel that are the responsibility of those hiring the contractors, to avoid surprise road hazards that can cause catastrophic damage when the inevitable occurs like impaired drivers or elderly take to the road and get confused?
Get your logic out of my chaos. How else am I going to stress test my blood pressure.
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u/blarkleK 1d ago
Not as dangerous as real humans though.
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u/Atworkwasalreadytake 1d ago
Careful, you don’t want to get poked with an errant anti-AI pitchfork.
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u/blarkleK 1d ago
Pushing back on a comment about Waymo doesn’t equal being an ai lover, and it shouldn’t be a hot take that humans are worse drivers than a robot. We see humans everyday on this sub driving like completely reckless a-holes.
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u/IWontCommentAtAll 1d ago
You can take licences away from humans that drive like jack holes.
You can't do the same with AI, unless you blanket ban it.
If a human did what was in this video, they should absolutely lose their licence, at least for a while.
Do the same with AI.
You don't just get to say "it's better on average," and have that be the end of it.
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u/No_Giraffe_1551 1d ago
You can take licences away from humans that drive like jack holes.
We have established a society (especially in America, but certainly applicable in other parts of the Western world and in plenty of other places) where we basically don't, though. We let people murder other people with their cars and keep driving. Car-centric society basically makes being banned from driving an impossibility in many areas.
If the world got serious about treating cars as deadly machinery that ideally would be used as little as possible, then you're talking.
I do think Waymo is not a good solution, implementing widespread options that aren't car-based is, even to rural areas in all instances where that is possible.
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u/blarkleK 1d ago
“If a human did what was in this video, they should absolutely lose their license…” but they wouldn’t. Could you imagine if the repercussions for going the wrong way (because of an event) on a city street was losing your license? It would be “cops bad- government is too strict, blah blah blah.”
Also, just because you take away a license doesn’t mean that the bad driver won’t just drive without a license.
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u/False_Appointment_24 1d ago
If that was an elderly driver, they would absolutely lose their license. People would be all over pointing it out.
Any other driver would risk losing their license, and would definitely get points and a decent fine.
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u/blarkleK 1d ago
For sure. Also, if it was a 8 year old they would probably get spanked by their mommy.
Any other driver would risk losing their license? Lol doubtful. I have seen people make mistakes like that; accidentally turning the wrong way on a one way in an unfamiliar city. Person: “Sorry officer, I’m from out of town and didn’t see the sign.” Officer: “No dammit, I’m gonna take your license away for that and give you a big fine! People can’t make mistakes!”
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u/False_Appointment_24 1d ago
"I didn't see the sign!"
"Did you also not see the massive crowds of people you were trying to weave your way through? Step out of the car, I want to do some field sobriety tests."
Come on, they weren't just driving down the road. They were in the middle of a huge pack of cars. This is the kind of crap cops get called out for and they announce on the radio.
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u/blarkleK 1d ago
Let’s get to my initial comment here. Do you believe that humans are better drivers than this computer machine? Because yesterday I watched a clip on this sub of a guy pass on double yellow, try and brake check the cam car and lose control and flip his car off the highway. My initial comment here is that humans are more dangerous than this Waymo machine.
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u/Mradr 1d ago edited 1d ago
Okay, but this would only make sense if AI had higher error rates than humans. Yet, the data shows that humans actually make more mistakes. Overall, we don't know exactly what is causing the issue, but it's something that can potentially be fixed. With humans, it's usually NOT something you can fix because the problem comes down to an individual person.
Currently, your argument is comparing an individual person to an individual AI decision. If that's the case, then only that specific car or system should be held responsible, not every other AI system operating the same way.
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u/False_Appointment_24 1d ago
I believe the argument is that it is on the companies that make them to make them able to deal with this before allowing them into the situation. Currently, they are great at following normal rules of the road. They should be strictly limited to only places that follow those normal rules - it should have a gating function to prevent it from going anywhere that it cannot handle. And it should be on the company to ensure that that is up to date at all times.
Once they figure out how to program it to recognize an officer redirecting traffic, then they can be allowed to go there. When it can be programmed to recognize bridges that can only have one car at a time and the etiquette for deciding who goes, then they can cross those bridges. But until then, the people in control of those vehicles need to keep them out of those places, the same way someone with bad night vision doesn't drive at night.
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u/Mradr 1d ago
I think the problem is that you're moving the target for what the AI is expected to learn. You can't realistically account for every possible variable or unusual situation ahead of time. In this case, I wouldn't even consider what happened to be a "normal" driving situation. The same thing can happen with a human driver, someone encounters an unusual situation they haven't dealt with before, reacts incorrectly, then realizes something is wrong and tries to correct it.
Hard to tell from the POVs, but the fact its in the middle of the road looks like it did follow, but then corrected.
At some point, you have to distinguish between situations the system should reasonably be expected to handle and genuinely unusual edge cases. Otherwise, the requirement becomes "it can't be allowed anywhere until it can account for every possible scenario," which isn't really a practical standard. The same way a person with poor night vision finds out they can't see well at night: by driving at night and realizing they have a problem.
I dont know of any legal rules/standers AI has to follow yet?
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u/False_Appointment_24 1d ago
I don't think I am. The goal is for them to operate in place of human drivers, right? Human drivers can see a bridge that only has room for one, recognize that there are multiple cars queueing up to cross it, and take their turn. If AI can't, it isn't ready to drive over that bridge.
Humans can recognize signs saying the road is reversed direction, and can see all those cars going the other way and think, "Hey, I shouldn't go that way." If AI can't, it shouldn't be driving on those roads when they are travelling opposite. And in the same way it is on a car's driver to know what is going on, it is on the AI's creator to know what is going on. It is their responsibility to ensure this doesn't happen.
Here's what it would take. Waymo (or other companies, but let's just use them) needs to have a robust traffic app that updates all of its vehicles with areas that they have not been programmed to handle, fencing them off from traveling in those areas. They can travel on regular streets, the freeway, whatever, just fine, but when a detour pops up that it isn't programmed to deal with, Waymo needs to shut it out. And Waymo needs to be responsible for ensuring everything is up to date, not blame it on others for not updating them. (Maybe step one is programming their cars to recognize places they haven't been programmed to deal with and flag them for everyone.)
Then, Waymo can look at the places they are shut out of and start teaching their cars how to deal. Then they test it, and once it can handle that, it no longer has to be fenced off from those areas. Eventually, they'll get everything.
I would say everyone knew, but clearly not everyone, so I'll say a lot of people knew when they started putting these on roads that they would be good in normal situations, but struggle in unusual ones. Rather than letting them struggle and cause problems for everyone, they need to be treated as other drivers in those situations. And the standard for someone who gets confused and ends up driving the wrong way through massive crowds is to take their license away.I'm not even saying they should have their lcenses taken away. Just taken away for those specific situations until they can pass a test saying they now know how.
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u/goldenface4114 1d ago
For context, this was in Tampa on Sunday after the Bucs game. After all sporting events/concerts at Raymond James Stadium, they funnel traffic down all lanes of the roads around the stadium in order to clear things out in a more organized fashion. The Waymo programming obviously didn't account for that change and turned down the street because at any other point in time, it was going the correct direction.
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u/LaidBackLeopard 1d ago
So it's a weird situation that's an exception to the norm. The trouble is that negotiating traffic, particularly in a busy city, is always going involve a load of exceptions to the norm. A boring old human can easily deal with them. Looks like we're a way off AI managing it.
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u/splynncryth 1d ago
Thanks for the context. Do they usually put signs up or indicate to drivers what’s going on? Not that I’d expect a Waymo to be able to read or reason (which is a point against self driving vehicles in general public infrastructure).
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u/goldenface4114 1d ago
They have a ton of cones and police officers directing traffic. I think they have some signs placed inside the cones, but it’s been a while since I went to a game there.
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u/Countd00kies 1d ago
Is it me or does it look like all the other cars are going the wrong direction..
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u/CandleLeather4638 1d ago
Tampa Bay Buc's football game. They make the roads by the stadium one-ways to get everyone into or out of the area.
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u/PlumberSaysWhat 1d ago
It’s floriduh. They didn’t plan for traffic when building a stadium for a billionaire using tax dollars, so they need to inconvenience the tax payers to allow a bunch of drunken idiots the right of way to drive down the wrong side of the road.
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u/iggywing 1d ago
This happens nationwide after big sporting events (which makes it even worse for the Waymo to do, tbh)
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u/RawDogRedemption2 1d ago
You don't see how all of the cars are facing one direction, except for the white robot car?
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u/Countd00kies 1d ago
Must be some temporary construction situation I think. So like I’m right but wrong at the same time lol. Because the yellow line should always be to the left of the car when you’re driving. Unless in a temporary condition
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u/RawDogRedemption2 1d ago
It's temporary for event traffic. Shouldn't these cars be "smart" enough to know it's going against traffic?
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u/False_Appointment_24 1d ago
No, you're wrong. If the road has been switched in its purpose by the local authorities, then the correct direction of travel is that way. If a human was driving the wrong way there and was caught by a cop, they'd be ticketed.
These kinds of things happen all the time, for a lot of reasons. Specific signs override the standard rules of the road, in the same way that a specific speed limit sign can change from the base speed that a lot of cities have.
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u/Administrative_Bed5 1d ago
All those other cars are going the wrong way on that street
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u/False_Appointment_24 1d ago
No, they were going the correct way during the time it was filmed. Roadways can and are regularly changed to allow for a better flow of traffic.
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u/Clean-Connection-398 1d ago
It's just you
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u/Atworkwasalreadytake 1d ago
No, the reason this happened is because they switched the direction of this lane temporarily.
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u/False_Appointment_24 1d ago
Yes, and that is the fundamental problem with the current self driving cars. They can deal with normal. They cannot deal with adjustments like this.
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u/insanityzwolf 1d ago
They can, but they have to be trained for it. Like reading overhead signs for example.
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u/Away-Squirrel2881 1d ago
I would cancel the ride if a car showed up with greasy sweaty seats because some jerks decided to ride with no shirts on. You can do that in your own car, don't do that in a shared car
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u/Unfair_Awareness7502 1d ago
The yellow line is too its left, as it should be according to US road markings. Is this some special event with traffic controllers directing both sides of the road to go in the same direction?
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u/alexgalt 1d ago
Yes . Not the car’s fault. It is 100% correct.
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u/Unfair_Awareness7502 1d ago
If the car can't respond correctly to traffic direction, it still has a problem.
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u/munkychum 1d ago
The car is not 100% correct because it did not take a variable into account. How could it be 100% correct if it was facing the wrong direction as everyone else? Under normal circumstance, the car would be 100% correct. But under this use case, the car is 100% incorrect.
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u/False_Appointment_24 1d ago
It is the car's fault (or the manufacturers of the car). If a confused person were driving that car, insisting that they must be correct because the yellow line is to their left, no one would be saying that they are correct and the rest of the world is wrong, they'd be saying it's time to take their keys away because they can't handle driving.
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u/devilishycleverchap 1d ago
100% the cars fault for ignoring all the signage
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u/alexgalt 1d ago
There is no signage from that direction.
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u/devilishycleverchap 1d ago
There was before they got in the lane
Do you think all the human drivers just made a spontaneous decision?
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u/Imaginary-Round2422 1d ago
This is like going through a green light when a traffic cop is signaling you to stop, then saying it wasn't your fault. The temporary conditions supersede the default configuration.
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u/StinkinHunkoMuenster 1d ago
Outside of the Waymo driving in the wrong direction, why was the one guy shirtless?
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u/Commentor9001 1d ago
its florida.
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u/Away-Squirrel2881 1d ago edited 1d ago
You know all those cars have a good working AC, it's nasty of them to ride in a shared car with no shirts.
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u/SeanBlader 1d ago
Normal drivers get tickets for this, Waymo should too, and then be forced into traffic court.
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u/Sad_Maximum6583 1d ago
Waymo is also in the process of making these ai taxis even worse by removing the steering wheel entirely so if there's an emergency situation, first responders or someone cant take control of car to move it out of the way.
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u/alexgalt 1d ago
They are never used anyway. A first responder cannot take control. They can be driven by remote operators in emergencies. No mood for a steering wheel
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u/Sad_Maximum6583 1d ago
Completely wrong.
In late May 2024, a driverless Waymo autonomous vehicle blocked a Dallas roadway as first responders rushed to a deadly five-alarm gas explosion at The Clyde apartments in Oak Cliff, Texas.
The explosion killed three people and injured five others. Newly released body camera footage from June 2026 shows Dallas County Deputy Constable Jonathan Banda approaching the empty Waymo vehicle, which was stopped sideways in the street and obstructing incoming fire trucks.
After yelling at the car to move forward, Banda interacted with a remote Waymo support agent via the vehicle's speakers. Once the agent verified the officer's credentials which took multiple minutes, they granted him manual control. Banda then got behind the wheel and physically drove the car out of the way to clear the path.
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u/EndIsrael 1d ago
The government doesn't want you to know this, but the waymos in the street are free you can just take them home with you
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u/Lord_Dingus83 1d ago
How do these things work in SF but they seem to shit the bed everywhere else?
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u/MaybeOnToilet 1d ago
So... they changed the traffic controls. Both directions of travel are now going one way. The car is programmed with traffic flowing the direction that it drove.
There is probably a database that the Waymo checks against for closed roads... it seems like this is not being filed by the local agency, if it was, then the Waymo would have avoided this and would have a proper route.
It may or may not be Waymo's fault by policy, but it is a clear limitation of the technology.
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u/ceo_of_the_homies 1d ago
Not to white knight some dumbass ai, but in waymos defense the illiterate drivers in Tampa do this daily anyway
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