321
sounds like they needed to call a tow truck....
I was going to suggest charging the company an exorbitant fee for each incident but your idea is better.
win-win, tow companies fill their lots with waymo, people from waymo need to come get the car, pay hundreds in cash (because all those places are cash only) there's no room in the lot for normal tows.
The passengers should get free rides for a year.
What do you mean they're cash only? I've paid by card (credit card even) to have my car towed when it just died while sitting in traffic, and again when I needed to move a tool box. What in the world?
You weren't paying to get your car back. Different kind of towing.
In plenty of places (in the US) it's the exact same companies doing both. Mack Towing is a pretty good example. The police where I live use them to tow vehicles that are illegally parked or considered abandoned. Those places charge a fee ($400 per day) to the person who owns the vehicle and the fee must be paid before the vehicle will be returned to the customer. They really don't only deal in cash (although I can understand why they might not take credit card payments in this eventuality because of the risk of a chargeback).
We're not talking about calling a tow service to help you out. We're talking about calling a tow service for improperly or illegally parked cars.
They operate under a completely different set of rules, where they're very concerned about chargebacks.
The ones in my metro area only take cash, You're not even allowed to get your wallet out of the car.
They also have ATM's in their lobbies and they charge $6 to make a withdrawal.
I made a second comment where I specified but okay.
That costs money. Whereas we, as taxpayers, pay for emergency services...
ohh no no. When Police call a tow truck, the tow company comes, takes the vehicle off to a lot and the owner has to come to collect it, generally with cash.
I'm not saying just do it maliciously, but if they're asked to drive the car off, they should just block it and call a tow company.
Waymo pays for that toe and an outlandish amount of daily fees until they pick it up.
To them, it's no big deal, a few hundred dollars.
but compound that with the car being out of service for a few days. hiring someone, or flying someone in to unlock it... easy peasy
..and one of those giant pneumatic crushers. I bet if you crushed enough cars they'd work a little harder to keep it from happening.
put it on PPV, I'd watch it
It would be pretty cool. I doubt EVs enjoy being ground up in a hardcore woodchipper.
Imagine dying in a house fire because the fire fighters were on the opposite side of town taking a traffic cone off of the hood of a robot taxi when the call came in.
This is a good argument for actual robotaxis that aren't just cars with extra servos and sensors bolted on.
Yes, give it a robot arm to remove the cone. Or hire transformers for the job.
Or just don't have a hood.
"Privatize the profits..."
Socialize the losses! Libertarianism, US style (American exceptionalism).
But this was not an isolated incident. Waymo has relied on taxpayer-funded first responders to navigate its vehicles when they encounter issues
This should be more than enough reason to cancel their operating permit (whatever it is called) immediately.
Do you think normal cars don't occasionally break down in the middle of traffic and need to be moved out of the way by cops?
Normal cars don't do that (or maybe statistically next to never).
Think yourself: there would have been no news at all here if these cars did it as rarely as normal cars.
there would have been no news at all here if these cars did it as rarely as normal cars.
Bullshit. There are news stories every day of Teslas catching on fire. Do you have any idea how often normal cars catch on fire? There are news stories because it is a new technology that people either hate because they hate EVs and love gas cars, or because they hate Elon Musk. Yes, there are legitimate reasons to hate Tesla (Elon and the unopenable doors that trap people in), but EVs catch on fire statistically less often than gas cars, but you NEVER see stories about gas cars on fire and see tons of stories about Teslas.
Also, there are 6 cases they could find of this happening on Waymos. Do you have any idea how many millions of miles these Waymos have driven? 200 million miles. They are operating 24/7 in 10 major cities and have been for multiple years. Their home base in my city is right by my house, and do you know how many Waymos I've seen stopped on the side of the road, either broken down or stopped for being confused? None so far. Do you know how many cars I have seen stopped in the middle of the road or an intersection, either because they broke down, or had a flat tire, or the driver was on the phone, or the driver missed a turn and was trying to do a 5 point turn in heavy traffic instead of going 1 block farther and then turning around? A lot. Multiple times I've seen cops pulled over directing traffic away from a stalled car that people were trying to push out of the way. What is different from that cop using his time to do that versus getting in and driving it out of the way?
Firefighters have to deal with this all the time.
https://www.motorbiscuit.com/can-fire-trucks-push-cars-reach-burning-home/
https://www.firerescue1.com/video-fdny-firefighters-miss-fire-while-moving-illegally-parked-suv
https://www.kentlive.news/news/kent-news/what-firefighters-allowed-your-car-2386606
Capitalized profits, socialized losses
The image of firefighters rescuing robotaxis is perfect. We build these systems to be fully autonomous but then the whole time there are humans on standby, paid to bail out when the AI hesitates.
Self-driving is like the rest of modern tech. We sell it as magic, then quietly patch the gaps with human labor. But at least this is honest about it. The companies know who is really keeping these things moving.
Your tax dollars at work!
Externalized cost = free
As far as any and every large company is concerned anyway.
But this was not an isolated incident. Waymo has relied on taxpayer-funded first responders to navigate its vehicles when they encounter issues, despite the existence of the company’s own roadside assistance team. In at least six instances identified by TechCrunch, first responders have had to take control of Waymo vehicles and move them out of traffic during emergency situations, including one in which an officer was in the middle of responding to a mass shooting.
When this automation fad showed up, many people pointed out that there would be plenty of cases where the training data just didn't cover edge-cases. Problem is, life is FULL of edge-cases. This is where humans are uniquely good at improvising and adapting in real-time, when faced with previously unknown situations.
In fact, you can argue humans are really, really good at handling exceptions to the rule. Pretty much the textbook definition of "creativity."
That's fine, 'cause they're paying a fee for it, right?
Right?!
Now tell me how many times a cop or firefighter had to move a normal car out of the way in an emergency situation.
Impound them.
But.. but... their profits!
Yet another case of the poor funneling their money to the 1%.
The working class pays local taxes to fund the police and the fire department. The 1% make money by operating on a business model that relies on these taxpayer funded services to unfuck their product out of fucked situations. Thus the taxpayers unwillingly subsidize the 1% with their tax money. As such, the taxpayer funded services degrade because the fire department/police department have to babysit a private company's products instead of attending to business they're actually paid to do.
They see themselves as infrastructure, so then this makes sense. They want to install themselves into our life.
nottheonion
Sounds like it wasn't ready for prime time
this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2026
321 points (100.0% liked)
Technology
83566 readers
2584 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS