Waymo's Frontline Critics: Emergency Responders Say Performance Has Deteriorated

Emergency first responders in San Francisco and Austin told federal safety regulators last month that Waymo’s robo-taxis are performing worse than they used to — blocking fire station access, defaulting to frozen stops during active incidents, and disregarding officers’ hand signals. According to Wired, which obtained an audio recording of the closed-door session with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), first responders described the problem as a public-safety liability, not merely an inconvenience.

Austin Officers Flag Hand-Signal Failures and Cascading Delays

Lieutenant William White, head of the Austin Police Department’s Highway Enforcement Command, told NHTSA that Waymo vehicles frequently lock up at the worst possible moments. White said the cars often fail to register hand signals from officers — contradicting what the company had told his department — and that those lapses chain into multi-stage emergency delays. “I believe the technology was deployed too quickly in too vast amounts, with hundreds of vehicles, when it wasn’t really ready,” White told federal officials.

San Francisco Reports Regression, Not Stagnation

San Francisco voices added a more alarming dimension: deterioration of behavior that had already been corrected. Mary Ellen Carroll, executive director of San Francisco’s Department of Emergency Management, told NHTSA the vehicles are “committing more traffic violations” and reverting to patterns operators believed they had resolved — a regression, not a plateau. Fire Department Chief Patrick Rabbitt reported that Waymos are “frequently now blocking our fire stations from access,” with a default response of freezing when challenged by emergency conditions. One official summarized the stakes as “a safety issue for our crews as well as the victims.”

Expansion Ambitions Running Ahead of Operator Trust

The criticism arrives as Waymo accelerates its national footprint. The company currently runs driverless service across portions of 10 U.S. cities, with 10 more markets — including London — targeted before year-end. Wired reports the company logs 500,000 completed trips weekly, a volume that has grown tenfold in one year, though still a fraction of Uber’s output.

Why This Matters

According to Wired, Waymo’s own crash data positions autonomous vehicles as safer than human drivers — a claim that grows harder to leverage when the professionals managing street emergencies are the sources of complaint. Organized labor has already built political resistance in target markets: Boston, New York City, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. First-responder objections carry different weight: they connect directly to life-and-death outcomes, not contract disputes. Wired sought comment from NHTSA on the private session; the agency did not reply.