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Why would they handle it? The autonomous car has all the time in the world. If it takes too long, the car can just hit an error condition, terminate the ride, or maybe tell passengers to walk to the end of the street to get into another car. Then it can just ignore its surroundings and wait things out.

These cars get away with being incapable of following police instructions, I don't see why they would need to care about other traffic users.





If the Waymo is occupied or driving to a pickup, waiting indefinitely doesn't seem profit optimal.

There are video examples of Waymos reversing when a narrow road is obstructed.

There are also many examples of Waymos following directions from police and construction workers.


Around Portobello Road you often get some quite impressive jams like that with two busses and about ten cars. If it just stopped in the middle it wouldn't be popular with the permitting folk.

In Waymo's favour the humans often don't do that good a job.




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