Self-driving cars cause humungous traffic jam as none of them move
Topics: Technology
Stewart Perrie
Featured Image Credit: TikTok/sophie.stoeger
Topics: Technology
Self-driving cars appear to be the way of the future for the automotive industry.
However, it seems like we're still a bit off from it being a seamless piece of tech.
A humungous traffic jam has been observed in Austin, Texas after a bunch of driverless cars refused to move.
It's unclear what exactly caused the Cruise vehicles to stop moving, however you could imagine the frustration of drivers who couldn't move around the jam.
According to My San Antonio, at least 10 driverless cars were caught up on the block of San Gabriel Street and 23rd Street in the West Campus neighborhood.
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Cruise, the driverless company that owned all the cars involved in the issue, sent a statement to the outlet.
It said: "Cruise continuously monitors its fleet, and we were alerted to the crowding event on Sunday morning.
"We were able to address it and all vehicles departed the area autonomously.
"We apologize for any inconvenience."
This isn't the only time that an issue has erupted as a result of a driverless vehicle.
A police officer went viral after a clip showed him trying to pull over one of the fancy cars and failing miserably.
In the video you can see an officer signalling the car to turn into the side of the road so that he could approach, but the vehicle just wasn't playing ball.
While TikTok user Johnny Romano and his companion laughed and kept trying to explain the problem, showing their hands in the air away from any wheel, you can see the utter confusion on the officer's face before the clip ends.
People were quick to call out Johnny for not filming more and showing the reaction of the police officer when he got the drivers window to find that no one was in the seat.
One commenter pleaded: “I wanted to see him come to the drivers window sooo bad!”
Another made fun of the situation by joking: “Bro is going to pull over the AI."
In the end, it seems as though no one received anything too harsh of a punishment as Johnny shared an update video explaining that this was his first time in a self-driving car.
“We stop at a religious parade; I had no idea what to do,” he explained.
After the car wouldn’t stop, he told his followers how he continued his journey before stopping a little further up and when the officer caught up to him, they realized that there was no driver present.
Johnny made light of the situation by stating: “He can’t arrest a robot - there wasn’t enough room in the jail so we kind of chalked it up to a misunderstanding and he let me go.”