Description: Waymo's autonomous vehicle fleet reportedly contributed to traffic congestion in San Francisco after a PG&E substation fire cut power to nearly one-third of the city on December 20, 2025. As traffic signals went dark, Waymo vehicles requested remote confirmation checks at scale, creating delays that added to gridlock and prompted city officials to order the fleet off the road. Waymo later paused service and announced software and emergency-response updates.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: Waymo , Waymo's autonomous driving system , Traffic signal interpretation and decision-making system and Remote assistance and fleet management system developed and deployed an AI system, which harmed San Francisco drivers , San Francisco road users , San Francisco emergency services , Emergency responders , General public , General public of San Francisco and Waymo passengers.
Alleged implicated AI systems: Waymo's autonomous driving system , Traffic signal interpretation and decision-making system and Remote assistance and fleet management system
Incident Stats
Incident ID
1326
Report Count
2
Incident Date
2025-12-20
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
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Waymo on Tuesday acknowledged that its driverless cars contributed to traffic congestion during San Francisco's massive weekend power outage, saying the scale of the disruption overwhelmed parts of its system and prompted the company to imp…
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The Waymo Team post-incident response
At Waymo, our mission is to be the world's most trusted driver. We know trust is built through consistent behavior over time---earned through every mile we drive and every interaction we have with the community. This past Saturday, as a wid…
Variants
A "variant" is an AI incident similar to a known case—it has the same causes, harms, and AI system. Instead of listing it separately, we group it under the first reported incident. Unlike other incidents, variants do not need to have been reported outside the AIID. Learn more from the research paper.
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