No, your eyes are not deceiving you, the images in this article are of a police officer pulling over a car – but not a driver.

That’s the situation that a police officer in Phoenix, Arizona found himself in June, pulling over a vehicle after it drove down a busy road in the opposing lane.

The vehicle in question was a driverless taxi operated by self-driving car company Waymo that had gone rogue, running a red light and causing problems on the Phoenix streets.

The officer in question made the best of the undoubtedly awkward interaction, greeting the robotic vehicle with a cheerful hello before requesting assistance from dispatch.

“There’s no driver,” the officer reported to dispatch. He then greeted the driverless vehicle with an enthusiastic “Hi!” as the window automatically rolled down.

“Connected to rider support,” a robotic voice responded. “This call may be recorded for quality assurance.”

“So your car here drove into oncoming lanes of traffic,” the cop said to the Waymo support team member.

“Okay, I will go ahead and take a look at that right now,” the voice replied.

Waymo, for their part, seems unbothered, and they put out this statement:

“At Waymo, we currently serve over 50,000 weekly trips for our riders in some of the most challenging and complex environments,” a Waymo spokesperson said in response to the investigation. “We are proud of our performance and safety record over tens of millions of autonomous miles driven, as well as our demonstrated commitment to safety transparency. NHTSA plays a very important role in road safety, and we will continue to work with them as part of our mission to become the world’s most trusted driver.”

The company has been operating its self-driving car-hailing service since mid-2022 and is planning to expand commercial services into Los Angeles, California.

The officer was shocked by the behavior of the vehicle once he turned his lights on to attempt to pull it over, something he relayed to a passerby.

“You know the construction here?” the officer told the passerby. “It was going eastbound in the westbound lanes, which is real bad. So I light it up and it takes off in the intersection.”

 

Dispatch records obtained by AZCentral said that the car ran a red light and “FREAKED OUT” before it eventually pulled over.

Waymo told The Independent in a statement that the car “encountered inconsistent construction signage and briefly entered an unoccupied oncoming lane of traffic.” It was then “blocked from navigating back into the correct lane” for roughly 30 seconds.

Something that will need to be investigated in the future is how to properly “punish” driverless vehicles, since it’s difficult to issue a ticket to a computer.

“UNABLE TO ISSUE CITATION TO COMPUTER,” the police dispatch records read at the conclusion of the officer’s report.

Thankfully no injuries were reported.

Take a look at the video:

Sounds like the best way to avoid a ticket is to not employ a driver!

If you enjoyed that story, check out what happened when a guy gave ChatGPT $100 to make as money as possible, and it turned out exactly how you would expect.