Driverless cars slapped with parking tickets after breaking rules
Driverless cars racked up nearly 600 parking tickets in San Francisco last year as robot taxis favoured convenience over rules of the road.
Waymo autonomous vehicles, part of the Alphabet tech empire which includes Google and YouTube, received 589 tickets for parking violations in 2024, according to records from San Francisco's Municipal Transportation Agency.
The fines issued amounted to $65,065 (£50,326) and were handed out for parking in prohibited areas, obstructing traffic and disobeying street cleaning restrictions, according to city records seen by the Washington Post.
Sterling Haywood, 45, who has worked as a parking warden for 17 years, told the Post he had ticketed a Waymo driverless car parked in the Mission District during hours designated for street cleaning in January.
'I gave it the same courtesy I would give if there was somebody in the car,' he said, adding that he honked twice but the car didn't move, so he placed a $96 ticket on the window.
Waymo rolled out a test service in San Francisco in 2021 before making its fleet of robot taxis available to the general public in June 2024. Driverless technology's supporters hope it will eventually be introduced in Britain.
The company now operates more than 300 robot vehicles ferrying passengers around San Francisco, but its driverless cars have encountered many parking dilemmas faced by humans.
San Francisco parking wardens handed out nearly 1.2m parking tickets in 2024, worth almost $119m, according to the San Francisco Standard.
A Waymo spokesman said the driverless cars were still learning the social norms and rules of the road.
Ethan Teicher, of Waymo, told the Post that the company was refining its 'capability to better avoid parking citations', adding that the driverless cars had been designed 'to take the safest action available during the few minutes we are picking up or dropping off riders, which is when many of these parking citations occurred'.
The driverless vehicles are able to recognise appropriate parking spaces, but may pull over in a loading bay to drop off a rider 'if the only other available locations are a congested arterial road, or somewhere much further from where the rider needed to go', Mr Teicher said.
The spokesman added that safety remained the company's highest priority 'both for people who choose to ride with us and with whom we share the streets', and confirmed that the company pays the fines.
Driverless cars in California cannot currently receive tickets for moving traffic violations, such as speeding or failing to stop at zebra crossings, as these fines must be issued to a driver.
A state law has been passed allowing autonomous vehicle companies to be fined for such traffic offences, but this will not be in force until July 2026.
Self-driving cars have also attracted criticism for obstructing emergency service vehicles in San Francisco, prompting city officials to demand greater oversight.
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