First Responders Act as "Unpaid Roadside Assistance" for Waymo

The issue of autonomous vehicles impeding emergency services crystallized during a December 2025 power outage in San Francisco. The city's Department of Emergency Management reported 63 emergency calls related to stalled Waymo vehicles, with one 911 operator spending 53 minutes on hold with the company. This event led to at least 64 instances where first responders had to manually move the robotaxis. During the outage, Waymo's system, designed to treat dark intersections as four-way stops, became overwhelmed by the scale of the event, leading to a "concentrated spike" in requests for remote assistance. This backlog resulted in vehicles freezing in intersections, compelling officials like San Francisco Supervisor Bilal Mahmood to question the viability of relying on remote operators, some located as far as the Philippines, during a city-wide crisis. A more critical incident occurred in Austin in March 2026, when a Waymo vehicle blocked an ambulance responding to a mass shooting. A police officer had to manually enter and move the vehicle after it stopped in the middle of the street, preventing the ambulance from reaching the scene and forcing it to reverse. Though officials stated the delay didn't ultimately impact patient outcomes, the event highlighted the potentially severe consequences of AV hesitation in emergencies. In San Francisco alone, the Fire Department logged at least 85 incidents of autonomous vehicles interfering with emergency operations since January 2023. These "Unusual Occurrence" reports, later renamed "Autonomous Vehicle Incidents," documented robotaxis driving into fire scenes, running over hoses, and blocking firehouse access. In response to these events, Waymo emphasizes its First Responder Program, which has reportedly trained over 15,000 emergency personnel from more than 75 agencies. The company has established protocols for first responders to take manual control of a vehicle, a process that involves contacting a 24/7 hotline or using in-car buttons to get authorization from a remote Waymo representative. Waymo's remote assistance team, numbering around 70 agents for a fleet of 3,000 vehicles, provides high-level guidance to vehicles in confusing "edge case" scenarios but does not remotely drive them. Following the San Francisco blackout, the company pledged to improve its emergency communication protocols and update its software to better handle large-scale outages.