General Motors’ Cruise division ran into trouble in San Francisco after a string of high-profile crashes and other problems, ultimately leading to its closure, but Waymo is still going strong, and is racking up a serious number of parking tickets in the process. The Washington Post recently reported that the Google company picked up almost 600 parking tickets in 2024.
Waymo’s 589 parking tickets totaled $65,065 in penalties for violations that included ignoring street-sweeping rules, parking in no-parking zones, and obstructing traffic lanes. In Los Angeles, where it only began testing in November last year, the company received 75 citations.
A Waymo spokesperson told the Post that the company’s vehicles are 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.” They also said that Waymo pays its fines and is working to make its vehicles less likely to incur a citation.
Waymo vehicles can differentiate between parking and no-parking zones, but they are programmed to use commercial loading zones during drop-offs if other locations are deemed unsafe. Interestingly, California law enforcement can’t ticket an autonomous vehicle for a moving violation due to the state’s laws that require a driver to be present. Parking tickets are another story, however, though some officers say they give the vehicles the same courtesies they would a human driver, including giving them a chance to move before ticketing.
[Images: Waymo]
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