A Waymo Robotaxi Fled Police Through a Construction Zone. Now the Company Is Under Fire.

Elliot Slade and his fiancée expected a quiet ride home from San Mateo to San Francisco’s Mission District last month. Instead, they got a terrifying 20-second sprint through a construction zone, with police sirens closing in. The white Waymo robotaxi they were riding in tried to merge, failed, and then a remote operator appeared on the screen. Moments later, the car blasted through traffic cones and accelerated to highway speed, swerving around trucks as cones scattered under the wheels. Slade grabbed his phone, convinced they were about to die. "We’re done," he told his fiancée. "This is it."

The May 19 incident, first posted on X by Slade, prompted Waymo to suspend all freeway operations in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Miami—affecting thousands of rides. The company called it a chance to integrate recent technical lessons into the software. Affected passengers received three free rides worth up to $40 each. Slade’s video shows the chaos: the car jerking, lights flashing, and a remote agent eventually connecting to acknowledge the stress. The couple got out shaken but unharmed after the vehicle finally exited the freeway.

This wasn’t an isolated event. In Phoenix a year earlier, police pulled over a Waymo driving in an oncoming lane near construction. Dispatch records captured the moment in all caps: the car “FREAKED OUT,” ran a red light, and turned into a parking lot. No citation was issued; Waymo blamed inconsistent signage. In San Bruno, California, officers found a Waymo making an illegal U-turn during a DUI operation. They pulled it over, only to find an empty driver’s seat. “Our citation books don’t have a box for ‘robot,’” the department posted on Facebook. They called Waymo instead.

Miami police dealt with a similar case this spring, and in downtown Los Angeles last December, a Waymo carried passengers past an active felony stop. Officers had a suspect on the ground, guns drawn. The robotaxi slowed, signaled, and kept moving. An officer approached with his weapon ready. The whole thing lasted 15 seconds. Nobody was hurt, but the pattern is clear: these systems detect emergency lights and sirens, but in complex, unpredictable scenes, they hesitate, misjudge, or accelerate when a human driver would brake. Construction zones confuse lane markings. Police activity creates obstacles no pre-programmed rule fully anticipates.

Waymo launched freeway service in November 2025 across four cities, promising faster trips and broader access. Riders embraced the convenience, but safety complaints mounted. Vehicles blocked ambulances. One reportedly rolled over a pedestrian’s foot in San Francisco. Others ignored bike lanes or drove the wrong way. Public trust eroded with each viral clip. Regulators are watching closely. California lawmakers are debating new rules for autonomous vehicles, and federal investigators have opened probes into multiple robotaxi operators after clusters of crashes and near-misses.

Industry insiders point to the core challenge: human drivers rely on intuition and split-second judgment, while cameras, lidar, and neural networks process data at astonishing speed but lack true understanding of context. A flashing light might mean construction, a pursuit, or something worse. The software weighs probabilities. Sometimes it chooses acceleration over caution. Slade’s ride exposed exactly that gap. The remote operator spoke calmly and asked what the passengers wanted. Slade said they needed to exit. The car complied eventually, but the panic left a mark. “Once you lost your autonomy in the car, I don’t want to feel that again,” he told CBS News. “It was a really freaky moment.”

Waymo insists safety is the top priority and that every incident feeds improvements. The freeway suspension is temporary, they say. Engineers will refine detection of construction patterns and emergency responses. But the company hasn’t released detailed telemetry from Slade’s ride, and critics argue the pattern demands more than incremental patches. They call for mandatory data sharing, clear protocols for police interactions, and possibly limits on expansion until systems prove reliable in edge cases. Local officials in San Francisco and Los Angeles have expressed frustration. Protests against robotaxis have disrupted operations before.

Recent days brought fresh reports: a Waymo trapped a California driver for an hour, forcing her to call police. Another clip showed a robotaxi ignoring traffic directors at an intersection with a green light. Public sentiment on X grows harsher. Some demand outright bans. Others see the technology as inevitable but poorly timed. The Slade incident stands apart because of its speed and terror: highway speeds through active construction, police in pursuit, passengers powerless in the back seat. No steering wheel to grab. No brake to stomp. That helplessness defines the current anxiety around driverless cars.

Waymo built its reputation on millions of safe miles. Most days, its vehicles navigate city streets with impressive consistency. Yet the exceptions carry outsized weight. One panicked couple. One viral video. One suspension that halts freeway service across multiple metros. The episode forces a question the industry prefers to answer with data instead of emotion: Can software ever match the caution a frightened human driver exercises when sirens close in and cones fly past the windshield? The answer will determine how quickly robotaxis move from novelty to mainstream transport. For now, Slade and his fiancée carry a memory they never asked for. And regulators, competitors, and the public watch to see whether this latest pause produces meaningful change or simply delays the next surprise.