Waymo Robotaxis adds 589 parking tickets in a year

The whole concept of Robotaxis should give us convenient, safe and efficient transportation, but it seems that San Francisco’s Waymo vehicles are developing tricks for something less than ideal – a violation of the violation. In fact, the company’s fleet of self-driving cars has managed to get a lot of fines.

Waymo vehicles received 589 parking tickets in 2024 alone, accumulating a $65,065 fine, according to the city’s Municipal Transportation Bureau. San Francisco has more than 300 Waymo vehicles and as of September last year, they have traveled more than 10 million miles on city streets.

Parking fine: new features of robots

Washington Post Report A large proportion of these violations (138 to be exact) were due to failure to follow street cleaning restrictions, while 134 were caused by traffic obstacles. There are 77 tickets for parking in the restricted area and 74 tickets for dual parking lots. If not enough, Waymo Robotaxis also received 75 fines in Los Angeles last year. So, obviously, it’s not just a San Francisco issue.

Read: Waymo Robotaxi Trap Passengers in Endless Car Parking Circles

Sterling Haywood, a parking control officer in the city, said he sold tickets to Waymo after he noticed it was designated as a street cleaning location. If the robot hinders traffic flow, it could increase the risk of crashes involving other drivers, perhaps forcing them to make a sudden turn or brake.

Waymo’s defense: first safe (stop second)

Waymo insists that its Jaguar I-Pace model has models that identify parking spaces and detect whether traffic is blocked. However, they may stop in commercial loading areas to drop riders “if the only other available location is crowded artery roads, or a little further away from where the rider needs to go.”

According to Waymo spokesman Ethan Teicher, the vehicles are designed to take the “safeest action” in a short time frame, which is when most of these parking tickets seem to happen.

While the goal of the robot is to be safer, not everyone in San Francisco loves Waymo cars. Last February, a robot from the company caught fire by vandals during a Lunar New Year celebration. Sometimes these vehicles can be simply annoying, like dozens of them gather in the city’s parking lot and honking their horns in the middle of the night.

So even though the Robotaxi Revolution is designed to make life easier, there seems to be a road to travel and then these self-driving cars can really be without problems.