Waymo’s Taxis Drive Like Humans – And That’s the Problem

Waymo's autonomous vehicles are hitting the streets, but their driving style is raising eyebrows—and not in a good way.

They brake for shadows, hesitate at intersections, and follow the letter of the law with an almost frustrating precision. It’s a masterclass in cautious, predictable, and sometimes infuriatingly human-like behavior.

The Uncanny Valley of Driving

This isn't the hyper-efficient, logic-driven future we were sold. Instead, passengers are reporting rides that feel like they're being chauffeured by the world's most nervous student driver. The AI has been trained on millions of miles of human driving data, and it shows—flaws and all.

It prioritizes absolute safety over traffic flow, creating rolling bottlenecks. It lacks the assertive, cooperative intuition that seasoned human drivers use to keep things moving. The result? A ride that’s technically safe but feels oddly, and sometimes aggravatingly, familiar.

A Costly Simulation of Mediocrity

Billions in venture capital, years of R&D, and the pinnacle of our AI ambitions have culminated in… a car that drives like your overly cautious aunt. It’s a stark reminder that replicating human behavior often means replicating human inefficiencies.

For the finance crowd watching, it’s a familiar story: another moonshot tech bet stuck simulating the status quo at a massive burn rate. The real innovation won't be in mimicking human drivers, but in designing something better. Until then, enjoy the slow, safe, and strangely expensive ride.

Waymo’s traffic violations and safety incidents emerge

Police in San Bruno, California stopped a Waymo in September after watching it make an illegal U-turn. The same month, one of the vehicles struck and killed a well-known cat in San Francisco’s Mission neighborhood. On a recent Thursday, a Waymo at a four-way stop accelerated alongside another car instead of waiting its turn. Moments later, it changed lanes without signaling.

A Waymo vehicle drove dangerously close to a police felony stop in downtown Los Angeles early one Sunday morning following a vehicle chase, creating a tense moment captured on video.

The driverless car made a left turn and passed within feet of a white truck that police had pulled over at the corner. Several police cruisers had their lights flashing, and the suspected driver was face down on the street.

The Los Angeles Police Department said the incident happened around 3:40 a.m. at Broadway and First Street, outside Times Mirror Square and downtown’s federal courthouse.

The department said the vehicle’s closeness and failure to avoid the traffic stop didn’t change how officers handled the situation. Police temporarily shut down the intersection afterward, which is standard procedure.

The police department’s Traffic Coordination Division develops protocols for driverless vehicles. It wasn’t clear if they would investigate. The division stays in regular contact with Waymo as the technology develops.

Jennifer Jeffries, who’s 54 and lives in Pacific Heights, has spent almost 3,000 minutes riding in Waymo cars since May 2024. She used to avoid them for downtown trips because they couldn’t handle tight situations. Once she sat stuck for several minutes while a Waymo waited behind a double-parked car being used for furniture delivery.

Now she has no concerns about taking them anywhere and thinks they handle as well as human rideshare drivers, possibly better.

“They will go around a car or get closer to a car than a human driver would,” Jeffries said. “Sometimes I’ll be in the back seat and I’ll be like, ‘Ooh that was really close.'”

She’s noticed one problem though. Like some rideshare drivers, they sometimes stop across the street from the pickup address, “which I don’t appreciate,” she said.

Waymo defends “confidently assertive” strategy

The company has been working to make its vehicles “confidently assertive,” according to Chris Ludwick, a senior director at Waymo, which is owned by Alphabet, Google’s parent company. “That was really necessary for us to actually scale this up in San Francisco, especially because of how busy it gets.”

Ludwick explained that when the cars are too passive, they cause problems. Regular software updates keep them from becoming troublesome or causing disorder.

While Ludwick wouldn’t discuss specific rule violations, he said the vehicles make practical choices that require balancing different priorities.

“The driver is designed to respect the rules of the road,” Ludwick said. “However, sometimes this is a nuanced topic and road rules can even conflict with each other.”

Join a premium crypto trading community free for 30 days - normally $100/mo.