A Waymo autonomous taxi got stuck blocking the entrance to a Santa Monica Chick-Fil-A drive-through on Monday evening according to KTLA 5. The Waymo briefly served as an LGBTQ+ rights activist by staging an unintentional protest of this drive-through-only Chick-Fil-A location, preventing drive-through access during the restaurant’s final half-hour of operation. The autonomous taxi was so flummoxed by the drive-through that Waymo, the only reason anyone remembers the Jaguar I-Pace, had to send its team out to manually recover the self-driving Jag.
No chicken for you
Waymo recently began testing expanded services in Los Angeles that will eventually include freeway access, but the Silicon Valley-based company clearly needs to work on what could be the most important service that a taxi or rideshare can provide; chauffeuring intoxicated riders through late night drive-throughs after the bars close. Chris Kellogg, one of the people who got stuck in the Chick-Fil-A drive-through line behind the paralyzed Waymo, sent a video of the brave little autonomous activist to KTLA 5.
“His videos showed Chick-fil-A workers standing around the stalled vehicle, which had its hazard lights on before it backed up briefly and briskly and stopped again.”
Kellogg told KTLA that around 9:30 p.m. he was forced to wait in the drive-through line behind the protesting Waymo for half-an-hour before he was informed that the drive-through only location had closed. Chick-Fil-A, which is known for its multi-million-dollar contributions to anti-LGBTQ organizations, politicians, and causes, did not respond to KTLA’s request for comment about the incident.
It is currently unclear whether a Waymo customer directed the autonomous taxi to the drive-through line, or if there was a passenger in the vehicle when it got stuck. We reached out to Waymo to see if the company is aware of the urgent importance of the need for drunk self-driving taxi riders to have access to drive-throughs, but we are still awaiting a response.
