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Posted on 06/01/2026 10:15:35 AM PDT by DFG
It was a ride a San Francisco couple will never forget and will never want to take again. Elliot Slade and his fiancée took a Waymo from San Mateo, hoping to reach their Mission District home.
Instead, the Waymo sped through a construction zone, was chased by police, then veered off the highway into a residential neighborhood.
"The Waymo started freaking out as we got closer to the merge cause the lanes were kind of all merging," Slade said. "One lane was gone, another lane was, who knows where it was. Cars were all over the place going in."
Slade captured cellphone video showing the Waymo trying to merge, but it was what happened next that terrified him and his fiancée.
"The scariest part, we're all like OK, something's happening," he said. "We're just going to pull over, we're going to be safe. Then it accelerated to highway speeds down this construction lane."
At that point, Slade wondered if he was going to make it out of the Waymo alive.
"There were construction signs," he added. "There were lights going on. Police in the distance and it sped up. That's when I looked at my fiancée, we're done. This is it. We're dead. We're going to die right here in the Waymo."
Slade says the Waymo sped up for roughly 20 seconds. It eventually got off the highway and pulled over in a residential neighborhood. That's when they finally heard from a Waymo representative.
"She came on the line and said from what I could see, it seemed like a stressful experience," he recalls the voice saying. "What do you want to do next? I was like we want to get out. They're like do you want to continue the journey; I was like absolutely not."
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
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I’ve posted this here before - I saw a Waymo do an illegal U-turn in the middle of a busy six lane city street in the middle of morning rush hour traffic one morning. I was shocked. This story is shocking that a Waymo would go this crazy without any safety feature to stop it. The passengers easily could have been injured. Its surprising that the police have no “kill switch” to stop them.
Carefree highway
Let me slip away on you
Carefree highway
You’ve seen the better days
Lyrics by Canada Man, Gordon Lightfoot
Can a passenger simply open the rear door on the Waymo and that will force the computer to stop?
Or are Waymo passengers locked in?
Those hiccups will get fixed. You can’t stop progress.
I’m all in favor of new tech, but I think this is an idea whose time may never come.
A friend took me for a ride in his driver assist Toyota. He took his hands off the wheel and it would head towards the center line and opposing traffic and at the last moment jerk back into the lane. It did the same at the edge of the road. Very jerky. My fear was, at the speed we were traveling, if it didn’t jerk us back on course we’d have hit either opposing traffic or a tree/ditch. Not an experience I’d like to repeat.
I can’t wait for robots to do all of our crimes for us. No one will be there to blame and if it looks like they might get found out, the robot or car can just destroy itself.
It’s a brave new world.
Apparently, they should have invested in a Tesla.
Safety of the Tesla Model 3.
Two passengers survived a 300-foot plunge off a Malibu cliff with moderate injuries, highlighting the vehicle’s incredible safety features.
“Driver, passenger airlifted after Tesla plunges 300 feet off Mulholland Hwy in Malibu”
https://www.aol.com/articles/driver-passenger-airlifted-tesla-plunges-014724000.html
I recently read of a Waymo that took passengers to the airport. When they got out to get their luggage, they closed the car door and the Waymo thought they were through so it took off, leaving them standing at the airport with their luggage still in the trunk.
And last month in my hometown, a Waymo drove itself into a flooded street. Luckily no passengers drowned.
You realize that "progress" means that a driverless taxi is programmed to kill its occupants as a last resort to protect the financial interests of company that runs it, right ?
Somethings are not progress.
In 2025 an estimated 36,640 people died in U.S. traffic crashes, with another 2 million injured.
Vehicles using Tesla FSD (Supervised) experience one major collision roughly every 5.0 to 5.3 million miles. In comparison, the general U.S. average results in an accident about once every 660,000 to 700,000 miles, making Tesla’s system statistically about 7 to 8 times safer.
Insurance will end up being cheaper on the self driving cars.
This is a metafore for government trust.
When you put your complete trust in the automated govt vehicle, hold on for your life, as it may end quite tragically.
Canada Man 😀👍
About three weeks ago, I saw a shocking one in Palo Alto, California just 3 or miles from Waymo HQ. I was at El Camino and Page Mill. I was the front car in one of the two left-turn lanes. There were two left-turn lanes on the other side of the intersection with Waymo being the front car in the median lane.
Their left-turn arrow turned green and the Waymo started moving...then stopped dead half-way into the intersection. Just sat there. People behind start going around the dead car.
It sat there maybe 8-10 seconds and finally started moving again. No accident, but it could have been a bad one if it had screwed up a few seconds before or after.
Our modern world! Ha!
Hopped in my Tesla today and drove 2.5 hours, through DC traffic. No issues, I never look at the road. It doesnt matter what you think of Elon personally, his stuff works.
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