Waymo's worst enemy: morning garbage trucks
Tried to take a Waymo to my workplace Wednesday morning and it had to be the most frustrating ride I've had on Waymo. Every few minutes it felt like there were garbage men stopping their trucks in the middle of these narrow streets and the Waymo had to wait then back up then proceed to go in again, rinse and repeat. There was a point where I got stuck behind two Waymos with seemingly no passengers in it, both waiting for the garbage truck in front to move while simultaneously a transit bus comes up from behind my Waymo. So now there's a garbage truck blocking the road, three Waymos and a bus all on this tiny street.
I ended up calling their support and I guess they got someone to move my Waymo out of the way and back on an empty street but those two other Waymos were probably stuck there. Oh and we were all on a hill by the way. Eventually got the car to move and not too long after that the Waymo got stuck again waiting for another garbage truck. Backed up again and proceeded to go forward knowing the garbage truck wasn't going to move out of the way. Once again had to call support to move the car.
Final stretch of my ride (just a handful of blocks away from my destination) I see that we were approaching another garbage truck, this time the Waymo turned the corner and I gave a sigh of relief...until it turned another corner and there was ANOTHER garbage truck this time Waymo didn't turn a corner and went straight up to the garbage truck. I decided then to just get out and walk the rest of the way. I really wish they could detect bigger vehicles like garbage trucks better and respond by turning into another street. It really turned me away from wanting to take another Waymo early in the morning.