California police stumped after trying to ticket driverless car for illegal U-turn [View all]

Source: The Guardian

If a driver makes an illegal U-turn, but no one is behind the wheel, does the car still get a ticket? A police department in California grappled with this existential question last week.

During a DUI enforcement operation, officers in San Bruno pulled over a car without anyone behind the wheel after the autonomous vehicle made an illegal U-turn at a light. A post by the San Bruno police department on Saturday shows an officer looking into a Waymo – the leading autonomous ride-hailing vehicle in the San Francisco Bay Area – after stopping the signature white car.

“Since there was no human driver, a ticket couldn’t be issued (our citation books don’t have a box for “robot”),” reads the post.

The department said that it had alerted Waymo of the glitch, and that “hopefully the reprogramming will keep it from making any more illegal moves”.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/sep/29/waymo-illegal-u-turn-driverless-car