Photo by Phillip Pessar/Flickr
Audio By Carbonatix
Earlier this week, traffic on the Venetian Causeway ground to a halt when a white sedan suddenly stopped in the middle of the roadway, triggering a chorus of honking from frustrated drivers.
But when people stepped out of their cars to investigate, they found the source of the jam wasn’t an accident or a breakdown.
It was a driverless car.
A 21-second video shared on Instagram by @onlyindade shows a driverless Waymo vehicle holding up a line of at least a dozen cars on the causeway as drivers honk their horns. The person recording the video walks to the passenger-side door of the white Jaguar and pans inside, revealing an empty driver’s seat.
“Oh, no one’s in there? one woman asks.
“No one’s in there,” a man responds, laughing.
“Oh, so dangerous,” a woman replies as a small crowd forms on the sidewalk.
The video quickly sparked reactions online.
“Still better than half the drivers in Miami,” one person commented on @onlyindade’s video.
“the car got the latin abuela update,” another person wrote.
“Lmk we will come tow that shii 😂, ” @miamiirepo, which shares videos of towing and repossessions across South Florida, commented.
Late last year, the ride-hailing company — which currently operates in several U.S. cities including Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles — began operating a limited number of fully driverless vehicles across South Florida with Waymo employees as passengers. The company plans to launch in Miami, Orlando, and across Texas this year.
While the cars are not yet using the highways, Waymo does operate on freeways in California and Arizona.
Late Wednesday, 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.”
“Safety is our highest priority, both for those who choose to ride with us and for everyone with whom we share the streets,” a Waymo spokesperson wrote in an emailed comment to New Times. “We are committed to learning from situations like this to improve for the future.”
This wasn’t the first time a Waymo vehicle caused a traffic disruption. In December, one of the driverless cars snarled traffic at a popular holiday parade in Los Angeles after it glitched out and stalled on a bridge. The robotaxi ultimately caused a 45-minute traffic jam at the Venice Canals Boat Parade.
This is a breaking story and will be updated as events warrant.
