A Waymo robotaxi recently brought traffic to a standstill on a busy street in San Diego's Crown Point neighborhood, and I watched the entire ordeal unfold. The driverless vehicle approached an active construction area, stopped in the middle of the roadway and simply refused to move. Cars were forced to squeeze by it or find alternate routes, construction workers had to maneuver around it, and approximately two hours later, the futuristic taxi was finally removed by a tow truck.
There was no driver to steer around the obstruction, pull over or make the kind of judgment call motorists encounter every day. Instead, a vehicle designed to navigate San Diego's streets without human assistance became an obstacle that required humans to remove it.
I shared footage of the incident on SanDiegoVille's Instagram Story, prompting a response from Waymo's official account. A company representative acknowledged the complaint, writing, "This is not the kind of experience we want our community to have," and said the matter had been flagged internally for further attention.
What initially appeared to be an isolated technological malfunction now looks increasingly familiar. Similar incidents have been reported in North Park and other San Diego neighborhoods, while recent flooding left multiple Waymo vehicles struggling to navigate standing water, including one situation in which a police officer reportedly had to take the wheel.
The incidents are unfolding barely two months after Google's parent company Alphabet launched Waymo's public robotaxi service in San Diego on September 1, 2026. The company has since opened rides to the general public and expanded its operating territory, including a late-October push north toward La Jolla.
In North Park, a video posted to Reddit on November 1 under the title "waymo stalls traffic in north park" generated hundreds of reactions and a lengthy debate about whether the autonomous vehicles are ready for San Diego's unpredictable streets.
Several commenters identified the intersection of El Cajon Boulevard and Kansas Street, near Rudford's Restaurant, as a recurring trouble spot. One reported witnessing two other incidents at the same intersection, while another claimed to have seen a Waymo disabled nearby several months earlier.
Those accounts are not independently verified, but concerns about the intersection extend beyond social media. Minutes from a September 17 meeting of the El Cajon Boulevard Business Improvement Association specifically identified Waymo vehicles repeatedly stopping and obstructing traffic near Kansas Street, where newly installed traffic signals had not yet been activated.
The meeting minutes described the situation as a safety concern, suggesting that the vehicles' difficulties were already attracting attention from neighborhood business representatives weeks before the latest video circulated.
Other Reddit users described similar experiences elsewhere. One reported seeing a Waymo stopped for approximately 30 minutes near the Old Town Transit Center, while another described a vehicle slowing unexpectedly near a worker wearing a high-visibility vest.
The North Park discussion also revealed sharply divided opinions. Some residents questioned why driverless vehicles are permitted to operate if they can obstruct intersections without anyone present to move them. Others defended the technology, arguing that human drivers routinely cause traffic disruptions and that autonomous vehicles have demonstrated meaningful safety advantages.
The latest controversy comes after a particularly unusual week on San Diego's waterfront.
During late-October king tides, saltwater flooded portions of the city's coastal roadways, including streets near San Diego Bay Bay. Video recorded by hotel guest Megan Schmidt and distributed by Storyful showed multiple Waymo robotaxis stopping, reversing and struggling to proceed through flooded streets while other vehicles continued past.
Several commenters identified the intersection of El Cajon Boulevard and Kansas Street, near Rudford's Restaurant, as a recurring trouble spot. One reported witnessing two other incidents at the same intersection, while another claimed to have seen a Waymo disabled nearby several months earlier.
Those accounts are not independently verified, but concerns about the intersection extend beyond social media. Minutes from a September 17 meeting of the El Cajon Boulevard Business Improvement Association specifically identified Waymo vehicles repeatedly stopping and obstructing traffic near Kansas Street, where newly installed traffic signals had not yet been activated.
The meeting minutes described the situation as a safety concern, suggesting that the vehicles' difficulties were already attracting attention from neighborhood business representatives weeks before the latest video circulated.
Other Reddit users described similar experiences elsewhere. One reported seeing a Waymo stopped for approximately 30 minutes near the Old Town Transit Center, while another described a vehicle slowing unexpectedly near a worker wearing a high-visibility vest.
The North Park discussion also revealed sharply divided opinions. Some residents questioned why driverless vehicles are permitted to operate if they can obstruct intersections without anyone present to move them. Others defended the technology, arguing that human drivers routinely cause traffic disruptions and that autonomous vehicles have demonstrated meaningful safety advantages.
The latest controversy comes after a particularly unusual week on San Diego's waterfront.
During late-October king tides, saltwater flooded portions of the city's coastal roadways, including streets near San Diego Bay Bay. Video recorded by hotel guest Megan Schmidt and distributed by Storyful showed multiple Waymo robotaxis stopping, reversing and struggling to proceed through flooded streets while other vehicles continued past.
At least one of the robotaxis had a passenger inside. According to the footage and subsequent news coverage, police eventually intervened, with an officer entering the vehicle and driving it through the affected roadway.
The episode drew widespread attention, including coverage by ABC7 and the San Diego Union-Tribune, as residents watched driverless vehicles confront conditions that can challenge even experienced motorists.
There is an important distinction, however, between a malfunction and a safety precaution. The National Weather Service and Port of San Diego warned motorists against driving through standing water during the flooding, particularly because saltwater can conceal hazards and damage vehicles. A Waymo refusing to enter a flooded street may have been making the safer decision.
The larger concern is what happens afterward, when a vehicle cannot safely continue but also cannot promptly remove itself from the roadway.
And San Diego is hardly the first city to encounter that problem.
In May, Waymo temporarily suspended driverless operations in Atlanta and parts of Texas following severe weather. An unoccupied robotaxi became stranded in floodwaters in Atlanta, while an earlier April incident in San Antonio involved a Waymo entering a flooded roadway and being swept into Salado Creek. No injuries were reported in the Texas incident.
Federal regulators subsequently acknowledged a recall affecting 3,791 Waymo automated driving systems because the software could allow vehicles to enter standing water on higher-speed roadways, creating a risk of losing control.
Construction zones have presented another documented challenge.
In June, Waymo recalled automated driving systems installed in approximately 3,871 vehicles after identifying 13 incidents in Phoenix and the San Francisco Bay Area involving robotaxis entering closed freeway construction areas. Some vehicles passed ramp closure signs, while others traveled between cones marking active lane closures.
Waymo said the incidents did not result in collisions or injuries and implemented operating restrictions while developing software improvements.
Although those incidents occurred outside San Diego, they are particularly relevant to the Crown Point obstruction, where a robotaxi became immobilized after encountering an active construction situation. There is no evidence establishing that the local incident involved the same software problem identified in the federal recall.
The company has also faced scrutiny over its vehicles' interactions with school buses.
In December 2025, Waymo recalled software affecting 3,067 vehicles after identifying situations in which robotaxis could pass stopped school buses displaying warning lights or extended stop arms. Federal investigators subsequently examined a January 2026 incident in Austin, Texas, involving a Waymo passing a school bus while students were boarding.
The National Transportation Safety Board has also investigated a January 23 collision in Santa Monica in which a Waymo struck a nine-year-old child near an elementary school. The child suffered minor injuries, and preliminary information indicated the vehicle had slowed considerably before impact. Investigators have not issued a final determination of probable cause.
The collision underscores that autonomous vehicles are not immune from accidents, although individual incidents cannot establish whether the technology is more dangerous than human driving overall.
California has recorded hundreds of reported Waymo collisions in recent years, but raw collision totals do not establish fault. They also cannot be fairly compared with human-driver crash totals without accounting for miles traveled, road conditions and the circumstances surrounding each incident.
In fact, research published in July by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that Waymo's driverless vehicles experienced 68 percent fewer police-reportable crashes per mile than human drivers across operations in San Francisco, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Austin. The study also identified substantially lower rates of crashes involving injuries.
Those findings are significant, but San Diego was not included in the research, and its relatively new robotaxi service does not yet have a comparable long-term local safety record.
A Waymo may be statistically less likely to cause a collision than a human driver, but that does not mean it can navigate every situation safely or efficiently. When its technology encounters an unexpected obstacle and cannot determine how to proceed, the vehicle can become a traffic hazard itself, obstructing roads and forcing other drivers, emergency personnel or tow trucks to intervene.
The episode drew widespread attention, including coverage by ABC7 and the San Diego Union-Tribune, as residents watched driverless vehicles confront conditions that can challenge even experienced motorists.
There is an important distinction, however, between a malfunction and a safety precaution. The National Weather Service and Port of San Diego warned motorists against driving through standing water during the flooding, particularly because saltwater can conceal hazards and damage vehicles. A Waymo refusing to enter a flooded street may have been making the safer decision.
The larger concern is what happens afterward, when a vehicle cannot safely continue but also cannot promptly remove itself from the roadway.
And San Diego is hardly the first city to encounter that problem.
In May, Waymo temporarily suspended driverless operations in Atlanta and parts of Texas following severe weather. An unoccupied robotaxi became stranded in floodwaters in Atlanta, while an earlier April incident in San Antonio involved a Waymo entering a flooded roadway and being swept into Salado Creek. No injuries were reported in the Texas incident.
Federal regulators subsequently acknowledged a recall affecting 3,791 Waymo automated driving systems because the software could allow vehicles to enter standing water on higher-speed roadways, creating a risk of losing control.
Construction zones have presented another documented challenge.
In June, Waymo recalled automated driving systems installed in approximately 3,871 vehicles after identifying 13 incidents in Phoenix and the San Francisco Bay Area involving robotaxis entering closed freeway construction areas. Some vehicles passed ramp closure signs, while others traveled between cones marking active lane closures.
Waymo said the incidents did not result in collisions or injuries and implemented operating restrictions while developing software improvements.
Although those incidents occurred outside San Diego, they are particularly relevant to the Crown Point obstruction, where a robotaxi became immobilized after encountering an active construction situation. There is no evidence establishing that the local incident involved the same software problem identified in the federal recall.
The company has also faced scrutiny over its vehicles' interactions with school buses.
In December 2025, Waymo recalled software affecting 3,067 vehicles after identifying situations in which robotaxis could pass stopped school buses displaying warning lights or extended stop arms. Federal investigators subsequently examined a January 2026 incident in Austin, Texas, involving a Waymo passing a school bus while students were boarding.
The National Transportation Safety Board has also investigated a January 23 collision in Santa Monica in which a Waymo struck a nine-year-old child near an elementary school. The child suffered minor injuries, and preliminary information indicated the vehicle had slowed considerably before impact. Investigators have not issued a final determination of probable cause.
The collision underscores that autonomous vehicles are not immune from accidents, although individual incidents cannot establish whether the technology is more dangerous than human driving overall.
California has recorded hundreds of reported Waymo collisions in recent years, but raw collision totals do not establish fault. They also cannot be fairly compared with human-driver crash totals without accounting for miles traveled, road conditions and the circumstances surrounding each incident.
In fact, research published in July by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that Waymo's driverless vehicles experienced 68 percent fewer police-reportable crashes per mile than human drivers across operations in San Francisco, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Austin. The study also identified substantially lower rates of crashes involving injuries.
Those findings are significant, but San Diego was not included in the research, and its relatively new robotaxi service does not yet have a comparable long-term local safety record.
A Waymo may be statistically less likely to cause a collision than a human driver, but that does not mean it can navigate every situation safely or efficiently. When its technology encounters an unexpected obstacle and cannot determine how to proceed, the vehicle can become a traffic hazard itself, obstructing roads and forcing other drivers, emergency personnel or tow trucks to intervene.
In San Francisco, a widespread power outage in December 2025 left numerous Waymo vehicles stopped on streets with darkened traffic signals, complicating an already difficult traffic situation. Company data subsequently provided to California regulators documented more than 1,500 instances in which vehicles remained stopped for at least two minutes, with dozens requiring manual recovery.
The incidents also raised concerns about the ability of emergency personnel to reach Waymo representatives and promptly clear vehicles obstructing public streets.
Those concerns have reached federal regulators. In July, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration warned autonomous-vehicle developers about recurring problems involving driverless vehicles and emergency responders, including interference with police, firefighters and other personnel responding to incidents.
San Diego officials have expressed similar reservations.
Before Waymo launched passenger service locally, the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System opposed its expansion, raising concerns about public safety, interference with transit operations and the potential loss of transportation jobs.
The San Diego City Council subsequently adopted a nonbinding resolution urging greater local authority over autonomous vehicle operations. California regulators currently exercise primary oversight of driverless passenger services, limiting the city's ability to impose its own operating requirements.
New state legislation is intended to strengthen procedures for responding when autonomous vehicles become disabled or interfere with emergency operations, although major provisions are not scheduled to take effect until 2028.
For now, the technology continues spreading across San Diego. Waymo's vehicles have become increasingly common in Pacific Beach, downtown, Hillcrest, North Park and surrounding neighborhoods, with the company expanding service even as residents document situations in which the cars appear unable to respond to unexpected obstacles.
Waymo has emphasized that its autonomous driving technology is designed to reduce collisions caused by distracted, impaired and reckless human drivers. Its published safety data and independent research offer substantial support for that potential benefit.
But the experiences unfolding on San Diego streets highlight another aspect of the transition: when a driverless vehicle becomes confused, stops unexpectedly or cannot navigate around construction, the inconvenience can extend well beyond the passengers paying for the ride.
Other motorists may have to turn around. Construction crews may have to interrupt their work. Police officers may have to intervene. And, as I watched firsthand in Crown Point, a tow truck may ultimately be required to remove a vehicle that was supposed to drive itself.
San Diego is still in the earliest stages of widespread autonomous transportation. Whether these incidents become less frequent as the technology improves remains to be seen, but the question of who is responsible when a robotaxi blocks a public street is already confronting neighborhoods across the city.
Have a news tip, firsthand information or documentation about an issue you believe deserves attention? SanDiegoVille welcomes tips from readers about local businesses, government, public safety, consumer concerns and other matters affecting the San Diego community. Contact Info@SanDiegoVille.com.
Originally published on November 2, 2026.
