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Robotaxis do the darnedest things. They get swept away in floodwaters. They sometimes drive straight into exploding fireworks. And in Miami Beach, they seem to love snarling traffic.
In the latest instance of a driverless Waymo vehicle wreaking havoc on South Florida’s roadways, a 21-second video shared online by ABC News shows two of the cars locked in an apparent standoff at an intersection near Fifth Street and Alton Road in Miami Beach. The camera pans between the cars as they sit motionless, almost eyeing each other in a showdown, while the person filming narrates the traffic building up behind one of them.
“So we have two driverless vehicles trying to make a turn, and I guess they can’t figure it out,” the person recording says.
Seconds later, one of the cars breaks the impasse and makes a right turn. People can be heard cheering in the background.
“And there you go, they figured it out,” the person says.
It’s unclear exactly when the standoff took place.
After beginning vehicle testing in the area in early 2025, Waymo officially launched its service in South Florida in late January.
It’s not the company’s first traffic snarl in South Florida.
In early January, weeks before the launch, a driverless Waymo got stuck on the MacArthur Causeway, holding up a line of at least a dozen cars. At the time, Miami-Dade Commissioner Roberto J. Gonzalez called for Waymo to address reports of its vehicles freezing in traffic.
“Miami-Dade welcomes innovation, but never at the expense of public safety,” Gonzalez wrote in a post on X (formerly known as Twitter). “If @Waymo intends to operate in Miami-Dade, critical issues such as vehicles freezing in the middle of traffic must be fully resolved before any deployment.”
Less than two months later, a Miami rider said a Waymo trapped them on a MacArthur Causeway on-ramp for 45 minutes after the car hit the edge of its service area and stopped diagonally across the lane. Neither the Florida Highway Patrol nor a Waymo technician would move it; a tow truck eventually hauled the car away.
A spokesperson for Waymo did not immediately respond to New Times’ request for comment via email.
