Roadways in U.S. cities are gripped by gridlock, unsafe drivers, and too many vehicles, so most municipalities readily welcome any solution that could alleviate those issues.
Autonomous driving companies see a future where roads are less congested and far safer, thanks to technology that takes human drivers out of the equation.
But that promise has been marred by the reality that companies including Waymo, Tesla, and Zoox still have a few kinks to work out before they make human drivers obsolete.
Those issues were front and center for Waymo in San Francisco over the July 4 holiday weekend.
Several Waymo vehicles had to be towed in San Francisco over the weekend after their batteries died at the same time during Fourth of July holiday celebrations in the city. Video on social media showed about 20 Waymos lined up in a row, all with blinking lights and seemingly nowhere to go while pedestrians walked past the intersection they were blocking.
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie has been a champion for autonomous vehicles in the past, but it seems that the weekend’s events have him feeling a bit differently about the current AV experiment in his city.
San Francisco mayor calls for tighter controls on autonomous vehicles
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie sent a letter to California Secretary of Transportation Toks Omishakin asking the regulator to tighten controls on Waymo and other autonomous vehicle companies, increasing the threshold needed for them to operate in the state.
“Waymo vehicles struggled to navigate growing volumes of vehicular traffic and pedestrians,” Lurie said in his letter, which was viewed by the San Francisco Chronicle. “By the end of the fireworks show, autonomous vehicles became immobilized in travel lanes, blocking key streets and ultimately bringing traffic to a standstill.”
@Waymo we’ve been trapped by your cars for 4 hours behind the Palace of Fine arts in San Francisco. Fix your shit now! pic.twitter.com/t3wSEG3PrT
— Damián Hernández (@TheDamianHdez) July 5, 2026
“We appreciate Mayor Lurie and the City of San Francisco for the ongoing partnership with Waymo, and keeping SF at the forefront of innovation,” Waymo said in a statement to TheStreet.
“Waymo has successfully supported some of the city’s biggest events, including FIFA World Cup games, this year’s Super Bowl and Fan Fast, and NBA All-Star Weekend. The City and Waymo share a mutual goal of providing safe and accessible transportation for visitors and residents alike.”
But the company’s response to the incident didn’t placate the citizens of the city based on their social media responses, and it seemingly hasn’t placated Lurie, either.
The mayor is calling on the California Department of Transportation to tighten the rules so that autonomous vehicles “demonstrate four core operational capabilities,” proving they can continue to operate during major events or emergencies.
Those operational capabilities include:
- Keep traffic moving by immediately clearing disabled vehicles from travel lanes.
- Respond in real time to emergencies by updating geofencing or changing pick-up and drop-off locations so traffic can keep flowing.
- “Provide operational transparency” by updating local agencies on service disruptions, immobilized vehicles, and roadside assistance efforts.
- Conduct tests and exercises that show they are ready for widespread crowds and unpredictable road conditions.
San Francisco is currently conducting what the Chronicle calls an “autopsy” of the traffic chaos Waymo sparked on July 4.
“Waymo has successfully supported some of the city’s biggest events, including FIFA World Cup games, this year’s Super Bowl and Fan Fest, and NBA All-Star Weekend,” the company told the Chronicle.
“The city and Waymo share a mutual goal of providing safe and accessible transportation for visitors and residents alike. We will continue to partner with the City’s agencies, collaborating with them on the learnings based on the millions of rides we have provided in San Francisco.”
NHTSA issues call to action over AVs interfering in emergencies
This week, in a letter dated July 8, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued a call to action for all AV makers to fix the glitch causing their vehicles to ignore emergency situations.
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NHTSA admitted that it believes in the “immense potential” of AV technology to “reduce human error and improve safety” on the nation’s roads.
Still, the regulatory bodies tasked with safeguarding the country’s streets have “documented multiple instances in which AVs drove directly into active emergency scenes, blocked the paths of ambulances and firefighters, or failed to recognize and respond to basic safety conditions like flashing lights, flares, smoke, fire, and traffic cones.”
The letter called the AVs’ inability to navigate those situations a “functional insufficiency” on which the agency expects to see progress soon. The NHTSA says it will schedule meetings with AV system developers “by month’s end” to hear about how they plan to fix this problem.
“Let me be clear: the inability to detect and appropriately respond to such situations represents a functional insufficiency,” NHTSA Administrator Jonathan Morrison said. “Emergency scenes are not rare or extreme ‘edge cases.’ As such, NHTSA is today issuing a call to action for AV developers and operators to immediately focus their resources on fixing this issue.”
Related: Waymo, Tesla must fix a dangerous issue with their robotaxis, NHTSA says
