u/PrestigiousWebb

My girlfriend and I made the foolish decision tonight to try and drive into the city to see the fireworks. We proceeded to sit in the worst traffic of our lives going through Presidio. That honestly wouldn't have been so bad, if not for Waymo.

They were everywhere. I'm talking dozens and dozens. I presume they were down there for post fireworks, to take everyone where they needed to go. But they were unquestionably makimg everything worse. Pulling out to make left hand turn and just waiting in the middle of the street for it to be clear. Blocking both lanes of traffic. They were pulling over in no parking zones for no apparent reason. No passenger loading or anything. Just stopped with hazards on. Again blocking traffic.

At one point, we were stuck in a complete standstill for 15 minutes. Thanks to a street full of Waymos, with 1 at the front that was glitching out. Some of the other waymos tried to pass and ended up head on with oncoming traffic. These human drivers. Now everyone is completely stuck. Waymo completely glitches out. Throws the hazards on. Leaves this person blocked in. They end up having to reverse out of the street they were on to turn around. Eventually we had to make the choice to fight our way through traffic just to go home. It was clear we were not going to get close. Humans are freaking out. Trying to turn around, anything to get out of this mess. Causing the congestion to be amplified even more

We live in San Carlos. Left at 6pm and we ended up back home around 10:30. Absolutely a 0/10 nightmare. In hindsight, driving really was a poor decision.

I like waymo but they need to figure their shit out before they try to send large fleets to congested areas of the city during a holiday

Edit: my post wasnt to offer a general opinion on all waymos, nor was it to say that this years traffic was any worse than other years. I just wanted to point out some of the wild behavior I saw from some waymo cars on the 4th that undoubtedly made (the already existent) traffic worse