A Waymo autonomous taxi led to a traffic jam at a busy fast-food drive-thru in Santa Monica on Monday night.
Videos shared with KTLA show the autonomous vehicle stalled out in the middle of the drive-thru entrance at Chick-fil-A, causing a larger-than-usual line for waiting customers.
Around 9:30 p.m., an incident occurred at a Chick-fil-A located on Lincoln Boulevard. This information comes from Chris Kellogg, one of the individuals present, who had been awaiting the autonomous vehicle’s return to the road after navigating itself away.
His clips depicted Chick-fil-A employees gathered near the immobile car with its warning lights activated prior to it reversing quickly and then halting once more.
Kellogg mentioned that he had been waiting in line for approximately thirty minutes when he was informed that the restaurant, which operates solely as a drive-thru, was closed.
Even though Waymo’s autonomous taxis were introduced in urban areas a few years back, they still face challenges as emerging tech—often getting disoriented or lost. However, arriving at a fast-food joint, not to mention queuing up at the drive-thru lane, represents quite an unexpected deviation from their intended route.
It remains uncertain whether there were passengers in the car at the time or if the taxi was dispatched to the Chick-fil-A location because of an ongoing ride, or perhaps even due to some sort of sentience requiring organic material for power. However, Waymo has confirmed to KTLA that the vehicle encountered difficulties and their team retrieved it from the scene.
A representative stated that the firm, which operates as a subsidiary under Google’s parent organization, remains "dedicated to enhancing our services consistently and implementing necessary modifications to ensure this issue does not recur."
KTLA contacted Chick-fil-A’s headquarters, where a representative stated that the drive-thru briefly closed to facilitate the secure extraction of the vehicle. However, during this period, their walk-up window stayed operational.
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