Another Self-Driving Car Goes Rogue in California: Taxi Drives Passenger Into Active L.A. Fire Scene

A self-driving taxi darted past emergency flares into an active fire scene, KABC-TV reported Tuesday.

The incident involving a Waymo robotaxi took place in Hollywood, California, the news outlet reported.

The autonomous vehicle apparently took a wrong turn on Melrose Avenue and entered an area that had been blocked off by the Los Angeles Fire Department.

There appeared to be at least one passenger in the back seat of the vehicle, according to the report.

Witnesses told KABC the car stayed in the restricted area for about 10 minutes before making a U-turn and driving away.

Waymo is owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet.

This is just one incident on a growing list of oddities occurring with autonomous vehicles.

In September, a Waymo taxi was pulled over after making an illegal U-turn in front of police officers operating a DUI checkpoint.

The San Bruno Police Department said in a post on social media platform X that they had to contact the company to inform them of the “glitch.”

“Since there was no human driver, a ticket couldn’t be issued (our citation books don’t have a box for ‘robot’),” the department’s post explained.

“Hopefully the reprogramming will keep it from making any more illegal moves.”

The post went on, “For those who believe that we are being [lenient], there is legislation in the works that will allow officers to issue the company notices.”

One X Post said California law only allows officers to issue moving violations to human drivers. Legislators attempted to address these safety concerns, but the final law was weakened to only allow “notices of noncompliance” to be reported to the Department of Motor Vehicles.

A driverless Waymo robotaxi making an illegal U-turn in San Bruno has highlighted a major gap in traffic law enforcement. Police on DUI patrol witnessed the Jaguar I-Pace maneuver, but under current California law, moving violations can only be issued to human drivers. With no… pic.twitter.com/CaCwn0gx8v

— NextMetropolis (@NextMetropolis) October 3, 2025

That law, Assembly Bill 1777, won’t take effect until July, “leaving enforcement stuck in limbo.”

CBS News reported a Sept. 29 incident involving a Waymo vehicle in Atlanta that reportedly zoomed past a school bus that was stopped with its flashing lights on.

If a human driver got caught doing that, they would have received a $1,000 ticket, the network news outlet reported.

In a story that made national headlines — including coverage by The New York Times, a beloved San Francisco cat named Kit Kat was killed Oct. 27 by a Waymo taxi, causing an outpouring of emotion and calls for increased regulation.

Recently, a mother gave birth in the back seat of a Waymo taxi while on her way to the hospital in San Francisco.

(Stranger still, this was not the first birth to happen in one of these autonomous vehicles.)

The company reportedly explained that its rider support team detected “unusual activity” and alerted 911.

When asked how they knew something was “unusual,” Google’s parent company Alphabet, declined to elaborate.

Waymo offers driverless taxi services in five cities, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin, Phoenix, and Atlanta, with plans to expand.

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