Moment man hurls ‘rock’ at Waymo multiple times – before ‘driverless car’ runs red light to flee
This is the moment a man attacked a ‘driverless’ Waymo taxi by repeatedly throwing what appeared to be a rock at the side of the car.
Dashcam footage shows a pedestrian quickly approaching the car stopped at a red light near Battersea Park in south-west London.
He starts yelling and wagging his finger at people inside before banging on the window of the electric Jaguar I-PACE Waymo.
As the vehicle tries to move, the man throws an object, believed to be a rock, into the side of the car.
A loud crash can be heard in the dashcam footage.
The driver of the Waymo vehicle then accelerates through a red light to get away from the attacker, who appears to be pursuing him on foot.
Taxi driver Arif Uzzamam Mohammad, 48, witnessed the incident while driving to Heathrow Airport with a passenger just before noon on Saturday.
He said: ‘I don’t know what he said but it sounds like something like ‘call the police, call the police’.
‘At the same time, he had a medium sized stone in his hand, he first hit the windshield, then I think the driver got scared.
This is the moment a man attacked a ‘driverless’ Waymo taxi by throwing what appeared to be a rock at the side of the car.
The driver of the Waymo vehicle accelerated through a red light to get away from the attacker, who was apparently following him on foot.
‘Also shot twice’ [driver] side.
‘Then the driver threw the stone on the road when he went through a red light because he was afraid.’ [driver] I broke the side window.
‘Then he went to the back of the car.’
Mr Mohammad said he had no idea why the man might have carried out the attack.
He added: ‘I’m still wondering ‘why did he break that car?’ I think. He came from the right side and started shouting.
‘I don’t know why or what, if anything has happened before. I don’t know.’
The incident comes just weeks after a Waymo taxi crashed into a taped-off crime scene in Harlesden, north-west London.
As bystanders filmed the police cordon, the white car sped into view, apparently not noticing the police’s flashing blue lights and ‘Do Not Pass’ tape stretching across the carriageway at windshield level.
Two police officers appeared to be chatting with a resident of Waymo before Waymo returned.
Waymo insisted at the time that the car was under human control.
A statement said: ‘Safety is our top priority at Waymo and we condemn any form of vandalism.
‘Although such incidents are rare, we take them extremely seriously. In this case, an autonomous expert was behind the wheel and manually moved the vehicle away from the scene.
‘We are working closely with local safety authorities to investigate this incident and remain fully committed to improving road safety and mobility in the cities where we operate.’
In a previous incident, a Waymo taxi crashed into a taped-off crime scene in Harlesden, north-west London.
Driverless cars have been in London since last autumn and are mostly under the control of ‘safety drivers’.
Some are now entirely controlled by artificial intelligence, with a human in the driver’s seat in case of an emergency.
The company is a subsidiary of Google parent Alphabet Inc and grew out of Google’s driverless car project.
The company says its software, called ‘Waymo Driver’, ‘never gets drunk, tired or distracted’.
Cars use a combination of cameras, radar sensors, and lidar sensors, which is 3D scanning technology, in their autonomous vehicles.
This means cars can see overlapping fields of view in all directions for up to 500 meters.
When in full service, the vehicles have no human safety drivers.
The driverless cars’ steering wheels are on the left, as they were originally produced for the company’s US operations, where traffic flows on the right.
A Met Police spokesman said: ‘At 11.56am on Saturday May 9, police were called to reports of criminal damage to a vehicle in Havelock Terrace, Nine Elms.
Police teams investigated the area but could not locate the vehicle.
‘Another online report came to the police at 14.47 on the same day. The investigation continues to catch the suspect.
‘Anyone with information is asked to contact police on 101 quoting CAD3171/09MAY26.’
