AutonomousMedium
Waymo Robotaxis Allegedly Contributed to Traffic Gridlock During San Francisco PG&E Power Outage
- Occurred
- Dec 20, 2025
- Published
- Dec 23, 2025
- Source
- AI Incident Database
Summary
Waymo's autonomous vehicle fleet reportedly contributed to traffic congestion in San Francisco after a PG&E substation fire cut power to nearly one-third of the city on December 20, 2025. As traffic signals went dark, Waymo vehicles requested remote confirmation checks at scale, creating delays that added to gridlock and prompted city officials to order the fleet off the road. Waymo later paused service and announced software and emergency-response updates.
Developers
- Waymo
Deployers
- Waymo
Harmed parties
- San Francisco drivers
- San Francisco road users
- San Francisco emergency services
- Emergency responders
- General public
- General public of San Francisco
- Waymo passengers
Tags
- response
Classification
Category confidence: 95%
Severity confidence: 90%
Rationale: Waymo autonomous vehicles caused traffic gridlock during a power outage, leading to service pause and software updates.
Classifier: Qwen/Qwen3.5-35B-A3B-FP8