What to do when your Waymo holds up a Secret Service motorcade

Commenters reacted to an FT account of a Waymo halting in a Dallas intersection during a Secret Service diversion, with the passenger fleeing as agents threatened to "crush" the car and Waymo support delayed. cjs_ac reposted the full anecdote and Waymo's explanation that the car recognized officers' gestures but waited for remote escalation. beachy warned that abandoning a vehicle in front of armed officers could have had worse consequences, while boredatoms called the whole motorcade setup absurd and argued for helicopters instead; mswphd pushed back that helicopters can be more dangerous. Several users noted the surreal image of law enforcement berating a helpless customer (wat10000), and some suggested pragmatic fixes like neutral/push (darepublic) or joked about rebooting (chrisjj).

Opinion divided sharply over whether the car's default to stop was correct or if more flexible emergency overrides and corporate responsibility are needed. toast0 and phoronixrly defended stopping as the safe default for autonomous vehicles, saying halting in unexpected situations is preferable to risky maneuvers. By contrast, Brian_K_White argued Waymo shouldn't be allowed to "dump" unattended vehicles and that remote-control delays leave customers exposed, while SoftTalker warned that handing control back to passengers would create chaos. creatonez even suggested accepting damage rather than being trapped by the system.