Several of Waymo’s autonomous vehicles were seen stuck in the middle of San Francisco streets following a significant power outage that took out the city’s traffic lights. Waymo responded to the power outage by suspending its ride-hailing services in the city, but images and videos on social media showed the self-driving taxis stopped at intersections with hazard lights on.
“We have temporarily suspended our ride-hailing services in the San Francisco Bay Area due to the widespread power outage,” Suzanne Philion, a spokesperson for Waymo, told Engadget in an email. “Our teams are working diligently and in close coordination with city officials, and we are hopeful to bring our services back online soon.”
I admit I scratch my head at 4 way intersections with blinking yellows on all 4 though. Usually the bigger road gets the yellows for caution, the adjacent lanes have to yield.
I’ve not seen an intersection with four blinking yellow lights in California; typically two ways are blinking yellow (caution) and the other two are blinking red (stop).
I’ve seen both. Places where the lights are only intended to work at busy hours default to flashing red and flashing yellow. Lights with a power outage can be random but I’ve also seen flashing yellow in all directions. I don’t know why that’s even an allowed configuration though
Yeah the few times I’ve seen them set like that everyone is stopped, and just kinda waving people to go. I think it’s to do with power outage, and tye place I’ve seen it twice is a 4x3 lane intersection.