Waymo Vehicle ‘Standoff’ in San Francisco Street Exposes a Weakness, AI Expert Says

Autonomous vehicles are designed to avoid risk and can exhibit over-cautious behavior, according to San Jose State University Professor Ahmed Banafa.

A self-driving Waymo vehicle awaits passengers in Los Angeles on July 1, 2025. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

SAN FRANCISCO—A video of three Waymo autonomous vehicles (AVs) having a “standoff” on a street in San Francisco has gone viral on social media. An artificial intelligence (AI) expert said this incident exposes a weakness in AVs.

In the video clip, which was posted on TikTok on Dec. 6, one Waymo driverless car is facing uphill in a neighborhood and has slightly collided with another Waymo car that was apparently pulling out of a driveway. The cars have both stopped in the street and are blocking a third Waymo car that was trying to go down the road.

“It’s like this Waymo standoff,” a man’s voice says in the video.

The man says he was blocked by the third Waymo car after he drove out of a garage.

“I was just trying to get out of here,” he adds.

In an email to The Epoch Times, a Waymo spokesperson confirmed the incident and said: “While making a multi-point turn on a congested dead end street, two unoccupied Waymo vehicles made minor contact at a low speed. ... Our roadside assistance team recovered the vehicles and drove them back to the depot manually.”

The video was posted by someone with the username chii_rinna and received over 4.4 million views. It only captured the aftermath of the incident.

“This wasn’t a dangerous failure, but a reminder that today’s AVs still lack the ‘social instincts’ of human drivers,” San Jose State University Professor Ahmed Banafa told The Epoch Times.

Banafa—a distinguished expert in IoT, blockchain, cybersecurity, and AI—said Waymo’s safety systems worked; however, “the incident exposes a weakness in how AVs handle complex situations involving other AVs.”

“Humans use subtle cues like eye contact and body language to resolve these moments; AVs rely on rigid rules, which can lead to hesitation or confusion when multiple AVs meet,” he said.

AVs are designed to avoid risk and can exhibit over-cautious behavior, Banafa said.

“But in tight spots, too much caution can lead to indecision or minor bumps,” he said. “Each vehicle acts independently to stay safe, which can cause confusion when they face off in close quarters.”

This has not been the only incident of AVs blocking roads. In a Nov. 15, 2024, video shared on Instagram, a pair of Waymo cars are stuck behind an Amazon van in a San Francisco street, and another Waymo car has stopped while apparently trying to pass the van in the opposite direction. The third Waymo car also has a fourth one stuck behind it.

“What’s everybody going to do?” a woman’s voice says in the clip. “It is a Waymo standoff. What is going to happen?”

In another case on April 16, 2024, first reported in a Reddit post, six Waymo cars blocked traffic going onto the Potrero Avenue 101 on-ramp in San Francisco. Human drivers had to get out of their cars and move traffic cones out of the way so they could pass the stalled Waymos.

As one of the leading automated driving system providers, Waymo has hit the milestone of 450,000 paid rides per week as of Dec. 8, almost doubling the 250,000 weekly paid rides it reported in April, according to a CNBC report.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) data shows that Waymo reported over 1,400 crashes from July 2021 to Nov. 17, 2025.

However, the data didn’t distinguish whether the crashes were with human-driven vehicles or with other AVs.