Waymo Robotaxis Allegedly Contributed to Traffic Gridlock During San Francisco PG&E Power Outage
Description
Waymo's autonomous vehicle fleet reportedly contributed to traffic congestion in San Francisco after a PG&E substation fire cut power to nearly one-third of the city on December 20, 2025. As traffic signals went dark, Waymo vehicles requested remote confirmation checks at scale, creating delays that added to gridlock and prompted city officials to order the fleet off the road. Waymo later paused service and announced software and emergency-response updates.
Actors
Alleged Deployers
- waymo
Alleged Developers
- waymo
Harmed Parties
- san-francisco-drivers
- san-francisco-road-users
- san-francisco-emergency-services
- emergency-responders
- general-public
- general-public-of-san-francisco
- waymo-passengers
Classification
Risk Domain
AI Safety & FailuresRisk Subdomain
7.3. Lack of capability or robustness
MIT Risk Profile
Topics
Source
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Mitigation Tools
Tools related to this risk domain, via shared responsible AI topics.