It’s been a while since we’ve dunked on an autonomous taxi foul-up, mainly because it seemed for a while there that most of the companies field testing driverless ride-sharing services had either ceased operation or curtailed them significantly. But that appears not to be the case after a Waymo robotaxi got stuck in a Chick-fil-A drive-through. The incident occurred at the chicken giant’s Santa Monica, California location at about 9:30 at night, when the autonomous Jaguar got stuck after dropping off a passenger in the parking lot. The car apparently tried to use the drive-through lane to execute a multi-point turn but ended up across the entrance, blocking other vehicles seeking their late-evening chicken fix. The drive-through-only restaurant ended up closing for a short time while Waymo figured out how to get the vehicle moving again.
To be fair, drive-through lanes are challenging even for experienced drivers. Lanes are often narrow, curve radii are sometimes tighter than a large vehicle can negotiate smoothly, and the task-switching involved with transitioning from driver to customer can lead to mistakes. Drive-throughs almost seem engineered to make tempers flare, especially at restaurants where hangry drivers are likely to act out at the slightest delay. This is probably doubly so when drivers are stuck behind a driverless car, completely eliminating even the minimal decency that would likely be extended to a human driver who got themselves in a pickle. If people are willing to honk at and curse out the proverbial little old lady from Pasadena, they’re very unlikely to cooperate with a robotaxi and give it the room it needs to maneuver out of a tight spot. Perhaps that argues for a change in programming that accounts for real ..
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