Austin Police Department Corporal Patrick Oborski was manning a busy downtown intersection in Texas when he saw one of Waymo's robotaxis zoom ahead of traffic -- on the wrong side of the road.
As any officer in his situation would do, Oborski sprinted toward the car.
Then he faced a uniquely modern policing paradox: When no one is driving, who gets the ticket?
State and local governments, as well as federal regulators, are playing catch-up as autonomous taxis from companies like Alphabet-owned Waymo, Tesla and Amazon.com's Zoox spread across the country. Law-enforcement agencies have largely been on their own in figuring out how to ticket -- and even punish -- robotaxis that break traffic rules or get involved in crashes.
"They're way better drivers than a lot of other drivers that we see on the road, to tell you the truth," Oborski said. But he and other officers in several cities across the country say autonomous vehicles struggle to navigate unpredictable situations like construction zones and emergency scenes, and can lack the means to follow directions from police officers and other first responders.
For police, AVs have their upsides: Most of the time they drive less recklessly than humans do, they typically cap their maximum speeds, and they never fail a breathalyzer test. AV companies claim that their cars are statistically safer than human drivers.
But, according to officers in several cities across the country, these cars struggle to navigate unpredictable situations like construction zones and emergency scenes, and can lack the means to follow directions from police officers and other first responders.
The issue is one of many hurdles facing the AV rollout. The U.S. lacks a set of centralized rules and regulations governing how these cars should behave, leading states and cities to figure out enforcement on their own. This week, the chief of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration urged developers to improve how their vehicles interact with first responders.
Meanwhile, the robotaxi business continues to race ahead in America. Waymo leads the way with a fleet of about 4,000 AVs. The company offers driverless rides in 11 U.S. cities and is planning to soon expand the service to Denver, Las Vegas, San Diego and Tampa, Fla., Waymo announced on Wednesday. Goldman Sachs predicts that by 2030, nearly 63,000 commercial robotaxis will be on U.S. roads.
"Waymo's goal is to be a trusted public safety partner, not an additional burden, for first responders," a company spokesman said. "As we continue to scale, our goal is to become a seamless part of city operations."
Zoox said the company appreciates NHTSA's advancement of safety standards and its push to hold the AV industry accountable. Tesla didn't respond to a request for comment.
Austin has emerged as a hotbed of robotaxi deployments and cities like Dallas, Houston and San Antonio aren't far behind. But in Texas, police officers can't write a ticket for a car without a driver; that requires a driver's signature.
When an officer in Austin sees an AV break traffic rules, a complaint is filed in municipal court. Police Lt. William White then confirms the identity of the vehicle's registered agent. In Waymo's case, it is the company's law firm. The court then sends a summons to that agent, which can decide to appear in court or pay a fine.
"It's a very cumbersome process, and it isn't done a whole lot just because of the complexity of doing it versus writing it a ticket," said White, who serves on several municipal and state bodies focused on safely advancing autonomous technology.
Since July 2023, Austin has documented 298 "incidents" involving autonomous vehicles. These range from vehicles circling a quiet neighborhood at night to a wreck involving other vehicles. Of those, 231 have involved Waymo's vehicles. Eight of those have led to officers filing complaints against the company, White said.
White has found that most often, robotaxis cause problems by not moving. In March, a Waymo vehicle in Austin blocked an ambulance from reaching the scene of a shooting, White said. "By far my biggest concern with them is and always has been their inability to adapt," he said.
Waymo said the delay didn't "impact patient outcomes." A spokesman added, "We acknowledge we can do better and move faster."
Several states like California and Arizona require robotaxi companies to have law enforcement interaction protocols before they can offer rides. Texas doesn't have this mandate, but robotaxi companies still typically provide training for law enforcement on how the cars work. Waymo has provided in-person training for more than 35,000 first responders across the country, the company said.
During the Phoenix traffic division's in-person training from Waymo, officers learned how to conduct traffic stops with clear, concise hand movements, said police Detective Kurtis Merena. "It takes a little bit of time and consistency in order for that vehicle to comprehend what it is that you're actually asking," Merena said.
Tesla's coming Cybercab, a two-door, two-seat car without a steering wheel or pedals, seems built for this. It can respond to hand signals from a police officer, according to a document Tesla published in June. Waymo vehicles are also programmed to pull over at the sight of a cop car's lights, and they offer a means to speak with a human representative of their companies.
Merena said that communication has allowed Phoenix to handle robotaxi missteps without writing tickets. "Issuing a citation is never off the books," he said. "The ultimate goal is to correct bad behavior."
Attempts to pull an autonomous vehicle over aren't always successful. Elliot Slade and his fiancée were in a Waymo vehicle on U.S. 101 in San Mateo, Calif., on May 18, when the AV drove into a construction zone. As a highway patrol officer hit the lights and sirens, and repeatedly said "Stop, Waymo," over a speaker, the AV kept barreling forward toward the construction vehicles and workers, Slade said.
"We were like, 'Is it going to stop?'" Slade said. "We didn't know. And so that was a freaky moment."
The car giving Slade a ride avoided a confrontation with the police, but even if it had been pulled over, an officer wouldn't have been able to issue a ticket to the car without a driver.
That changed on July 1, when a new California law went into effect that allows police officers to issue notices of noncompliance to an AV manufacturer for moving violations. A Waymo spokesman said that ignoring police signals isn't its vehicles' norm, and that it continually works to improve the cars' software and hardware.
Near construction zones, sporting events, concerts or emergencies that AVs may not handle well, police officers have found that the best strategy is keeping the cars away in the first place. By creating a geofence, AV companies can instruct their cars to stay away from a particular geographic zone.
In Austin, Oborski said AVs still sometimes end up where they shouldn't be. During a University of Texas football game, one vehicle ripped a street sign from the concrete ground after driving through a chain barrier.
Other times, he has had to take matters into his own hands. At a university graduation last year, several Waymo vehicles got lost at the terminus of a dead-end road. Oborski trapped the vehicles in what he described as a "corral" using traffic cones. Eventually, Waymo sent human employees out to move the cars.
"Once we are in a situation that we're not happy with the way it's performed, we're gonna make them come get it," he said.
Write to Ellie Davis at ellie.davis@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 10, 2026 13:40 ET (17:40 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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