Waymo ‘goes rogue’: Self-driving car wakes residents at 4am as it gets stuck driving down dead end London street THREE times in a week

A self-driving Waymo car woke residents of a quiet London street at 4am after getting stuck trying to navigate a dead-end road three times in a week.

One of them complained on social media yesterday that a car belonging to the American company’s fleet woke him up by entering a narrow street at 4.15am and trying to turn back.

Chris, from London, posted footage showing the white SUV-style car clambering onto the pavement of the cobbled road while cautiously attempting to reverse the length of the street.

But far from learning from his mistake, the same thing happened twice more on Wednesday night.

Waymo is currently testing a fleet of unique white Jaguar vehicles designed to offer a fully autonomous, self-driving taxi service.

The company, which already operates a fully driverless service in cities such as San Francisco, Miami and Atlanta, announced that 24 vehicles will travel to London for testing and street mapping in January.

The fleet has become a familiar sight in some parts of the city, but a safety driver still sits behind the wheel of the cars in case the need to intervene arises. The firm was initially planning to test the service in early September before rolling it out more widely, and is reportedly planning to roll out the service to other British cities later.

But the vehicles have come under scrutiny after one was driven into a taped-off crime scene in Harlesden, west London, last month. Waymo later blamed driver error for the incident.

In a separate incident days later, Waymo appeared to get stuck again before having to complete a three-point turn to get off the road.

There is a metal gate blocking traffic on Elder Street in Shoreditch; This actually turns one end of the street into a dead end.

But Waymo’s technology failed to detect this and instead sent at least three vehicles onto the road in the dead of night.

Chris complained that the events ‘woke everyone on the street’ and criticized the firm, which is owned by Google parent company Alphabet, for not fixing the bug.

He added that the vehicles became stuck as they approached the barrier, where they remained motionless for minutes, seemingly stunned.

In the images of the first incident, which took place on Sunday last week, it is seen that the vehicle, which went onto the pavement while approaching the dead-end street, turned very slowly back along the street and slid towards the pavements.

The car could be heard making a loud beeping and humming noise as it reversed; this was clearly visible in the video even though Chris was shooting from a distance.

The second incident, which occurred on Wednesday, also appears to have occurred in the middle of the night.

This time the safety driver was seen getting out of the vehicle and going around it to check the distance as it made a three-point turn in the narrow street; The situation was made even more difficult by the presence of parked cars.

A fleet of Waymo cars is being tested in London ahead of their launch later this year

This comes just two weeks after a separate incident in the capital where a Waymo vehicle drove into the scene of a crime.

A road was closed in Harlesden following the double stabbing.

The footage captured the moment the vehicle sped off, seemingly unaware of police cars with flashing lights and crime scene tape.

Waymo later said that the car was being driven manually at the time and that ‘initial analysis’ showed that the car would have stopped had it been in autonomous mode.

Taxis use four sensor systems to collect and use data from the world around them: vision, radar, microphone and lidar.

Lidar – Light Detection and Ranging – is a remote sensing method that uses laser pulses to measure distances and create precise 3D, high-resolution models of objects and surrounding terrain.

A powerful computer located in the trunk of the car processes all the data and decides on the car’s actions in real time.

But while the service is now well-established in some parts of the US, it hasn’t always been smooth sailing.

This year, some of their vehicles were seen illegally passing American school buses, stopping to let children get on and off.

And in October, a Waymo was responsible for the killing of a local cat in San Francisco.

According to the company, when the vehicle stopped to pick up a passenger, the tabby KitKat jumped out from under the vehicle as it drove away.

A spokesperson for the firm said: ‘We send our deepest condolences to the cat’s owner and the community who loved him and have made a donation to a local animal rights organisation.’

Passengers in the United States also reported being trapped inside their vehicles. During a power outage in San Francisco in December, cars stopped because they didn’t know how to react to traffic lights that weren’t working.

The firm argues it has a strong safety record, citing figures showing its cars are 91 per cent less likely to be involved in crashes resulting in serious injuries.

A spokesperson for Waymo said: ‘As we prepare for fully autonomous operations in London, we are looking to validate our technology on roads across the city. However, in response to this feedback we have now limited the ability of vehicles to drive on this street.’