Austin’s challenge in ticketing driverless cars | Inside the Investigation

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00][music] >> Right now, [music] there are hundreds of Waymo self-driving cars operating in Austin with no human safety monitor behind the wheel, and five other companies are operating in the city at various stages of testing and mapping.

[00:00:18]This week on Inside the Investigation, investigative reporter Kelly Wiley [music] explains why, despite hundreds of documented issues with AVs, local police [music] have cited the driverless cars nine times. Plus, Waymo, the company operating the most AVs in town, [music] sits down to address the viral videos raising safety concerns.

[00:00:40]Welcome to Inside the Investigation. I'm investigative reporter Matt Grant, filling in as host for today and filling in for my amazing colleague Kelly Wiley.

[00:00:49]>> No, I'm happy to be here with you.

[00:00:50]>> Thanks for joining us. Thanks for letting me fill in today and get to talk to you for a change. It's very nice. You just uh completed uh an amazing investigation looking at Waymo, and I wanted to talk to you about that today.

[00:01:04]Uh you found hundreds of logged incidents and complaints, yet the Austin Police Department has only ticketed these autonomous vehicles nine times.

[00:01:13]Nine times with hundreds of complaints.

[00:01:15]>> Yeah. Why is that? Well, it's so complicated. I mean, autonomous vehicles really are new to us. I mean, we've had them in the city for years and years, but I think they're still trying to work through how do we ticket, how do we police a driverless vehicle like we would other drivers? And so, there's so much of it they're navigating and discovering. But yes, the city of Austin has been tracking for several years. Not just complaint Not just incidents, but complaints. So, they're from residents, they're from law enforcement, they're from city workers. There are even some state folks that have apparently put in some complaints to the city. And the idea is they're just trying to figure out what's happening all across the city. A lot of them though are from law enforcement, and they're describing a lot of things. They're describing traffic violations, maybe running a light. Um they're describing uh you know autonomous vehicles freezing in the middle of the road. They're describing a a lot of different scenarios. Um first responders are describing what they're seeing as well. But yes, it at least gives us some idea of the volume that the city is seeing, right? The volume of incidents that they're seeing from autonomous vehicles over the years. And yet, as we discovered when we were looking to see how many traffic violations they put in, we were surprised to see that it was nine. And actually when we talked to uh Lieutenant White with the Austin Police Department about this, he actually thought it was six um you know at the time. And part of that is because it's the system that Austin uh Police Department has set up is more complicated than it would be if they were just ticketing a driver right there on the spot, right? You're imagining you're driving down the road, you've maybe done something that you're not supposed to do, run a red light or or you know it's some kind of traffic violation. The officer would talk to you and ticket you right there, and you would have an opportunity potentially sign that ticket, right? And that's not an admission of guilt, but it is saying that you're either going to pay it or you're going to show up in court. Um the issue kind of lies there for the Austin Police Department. For a driverless vehicle, there is no one to no one uh no one to sign for it. And there was a concern from uh Lieutenant White that that kind of um takes out the promise to go to court or to acknowledge the ticket. And so he went to Municipal Court and worked out this whole other system that really looks a lot more like an affidavit.

[00:03:44]They're filling out a narrative. It has to be approved. It has to be by a supervisor. It has to be signed on. Then it has to go to the Municipal Court. And it's sort of happening after the fact, right? They're coming back and they're doing that. So, it's a bit more complicated, and he said, "Really, for the most part, they just want to get the vehicles out of the way." A lot of what they were describing is maybe some weird scenario where an autonomous vehicle is freezing in the middle of the road, and they have to get in contact with, you know, the helpline inside the car. They then have to, if that doesn't work and they're not able to get the vehicle out, they would have to take over the vehicle physically and get it out of the road.

[00:04:22]So, he said a lot of the time their goal is just compliance. Get the car out of the road and kind of relieve the traffic incident that's happening right then and there. But, what we heard from Austin Police Department is they're hoping that the legislature will create a smoother system for this. He said, "Unlike Austin ISD that has these stop arm cameras that can photograph and automatically ticket an AV when they violate a traffic law, that's a carve the law." And so, he's hoping that legislators will address making this easier as autonomous vehicles, particularly as Waymo expands, right? They're in Dallas and Houston, much larger cities. Yeah, and you recently had a chance to take some of these concerns and questions to a top official at Waymo. Uh pretty rare interview. What did they have to say when you spoke with them?

[00:05:10]>> It was a really interesting and illuminating interview. It was with David Margines, who is the director of product management at Waymo, and he spent a good bit of the day with us. He talked to us for probably 30, 45 minutes. He showed us some videos uh to kind of highlight how Waymos operate in risky situations, and he also took us on a ride to the capital, and we got to kind of uh he got to walk us through some of the features and answer more of our questions. My biggest takeaways, I would say I would start with what their mission is, right? Like, I think a lot of the conversation has been, "What are these vehicles riding around town?

[00:05:45]There's no one in them. People discovering them. But, it was interesting to hear that their mission, at least in his words, really comes from a safety perspective. He talks about [snorts] all of the people that die on the roads and all the things that contribute to that, right? Like, drunk driving, texting and driving, distracted driving. And really, when you think about it, all of those things are not a factor when it comes to a driverless vehicle. They're never going to be texting and driving, they're not going to be drinking and driving like humans would. And their mission really is to increase safety on the roads, right? You know, there's a lot of cars on the roads, but what they're saying, what they're seeing in their data, which they say they they publish them it on their website, is that they're seeing 92% fewer fewer serious injury crashes. And that's related to the drivers in the cities where they four cities where they're operating over the same amount of miles. And they're seeing 82% fewer injury cause injury causing crashes. So, their ultimate goal, in their words, is to increase safety on the roads and kind of look at what he described as a really serious problem with people dying on the roadways. The other takeaways, we asked him about a lot of things, including the school bus the school bus issues with these violations that we've been reporting on.

[00:07:06]They weren't able to talk about that and Austin ISD wasn't either because the NTSB is currently investigating and they are party to that. But, they did talk about some other issues. And they talked about these videos that are circulating online, right? The Sixth Street video where they were blocking first responders, the video where they were kind of seen really close to those train tracks underneath that stop arm, videos where, you know, people are seeing issues with their Waymos that we've seen for for years on social media. And he says that's definitely happening, they're not perfect, and they're trying to jump on those issues and make fixes where they can. But, he says really, he wants people to step back, experience it for yourself, weigh those videos that you're seeing, but also look at their safety data. They believe it speaks for itself, and that ultimately Waymo is a better driver than than humans for the most part." And that's the big takeaway from them. He also showed me a video that was pretty popular and was seen a lot in 2024 when they were operating near UT, and there was a lot of people might remember the video, a girl's scooter kind of falls, she falls into the road, and the Waymo was able to react. And this was video they provided of their Waymo kind of swerving and braking at the same time.

[00:08:21]And his argument was, "Would a human be able to react that fast?" So you saw that video.

[00:08:26]>> I I gasped watching it. It It's It's shocking. Yeah.

[00:08:30]>> how close it came to hitting that girl.

[00:08:32]Exactly. And so that's one of the points he's making. And also he showed another video where, you know, a first responder's lights were blaring, they're trying to get through, and we've all been in that scenario where you're like, "Wait, where is it coming from? Where do I stop?" And the Waymo was able to react very quickly to it. So he kind of showed other videos to juxtapose against some of these miscues that their vehicles have had to show that, "Yes, these these these mistakes that their vehicles are making are things that they're addressing, but ultimately there's another picture where their Waymos are operating and doing things to increase safety on the road." So that was kind of the conversation there. From a a PR point of view and from a safety point of view, that video of the of the car missing that girl, I mean, certainly incredible, but on the opposite end you have video like during the the downtown shooting 6th Street, and you have the Waymo that we've all seen blocking the road and police trying to get it to move. What did Waymo say about that? Why was that AV there, and and why was it stuck? That was the exact question we asked them, what is happening here?

[00:09:39]Because you see the ambulance, this is during this chaotic scene where APD was looking for a shooter who had killed and injured several people. You see this ambulance trying to get through and there the Waymo is blocking it and not really seeming to be able to correct itself quickly. And from what we're hearing from APD, that lasted for around a minute, which may sound like not a lot of time, but the argument he makes is a minute when we're trying to save lives and when a scene like that matters a lot. And so we asked Waymo about it. We asked the the director of product management and he said what we're seeing is their vehicle trying to turn around.

[00:10:17]At that point it was realizing that it was coming up on this scene. You know, APD kind of geo fences the area and tells AVs stay out when we're doing certain when we're operating in certain scenes and they had done that that night and yet this vehicle was over there. It was trying to turn around according to Waymo and we heard the director of product management say it did not react to this dynamically changing scene as quickly as we would have liked it to. Now from what we understand APD and Waymo immediately got in conversations around what was happening here when it relates to the geo fencing issue and the fact that a first responder had to physically take over the vehicle in that case to get it out of the way after more than a minute or excuse me, after a minute of it blocking first responders. But Waymo says this is this isn't how we want the the vehicle to react and it didn't react as quickly as we wanted it to. Now we know that sparked a want from city council members for Waymo to come in and address that situation with council. We know that they've at least done so in this working group that APD is a part of and that Waymo is a part of. So they definitely it wasn't ideal for them. And I understand that in May there's going to be a new system of accountability for autonomous vehicles across the state.

[00:11:34]Can you walk us what this means for not just the companies, but for everyone who drives on these roads? Well, it it's going to be a a big change, right? So, the Texas DMV will be um wants all of the AVs and will require AVs to get authorization to operate on um on Texas roads. These companies will have to apply for authorization, but what's really um changing is I think some enforcement and accountability. The DMV will now have a process by which they can investigate complaints that are sent in by law enforcement, by people, by state workers, city workers about these vehicles. And if it rises to a level of where it could caught where it's causing um serious bodily harm or likely to cause serious bodily harm, uh through a process, it's not automatic, they will have the ability to revoke or restrict these operators from yet having their AVs on the road. And so, restricting that could look like you can't drive at night because of X issue. Or it could look like you can't be on the road entirely until this until this resolves.

[00:12:41]So, that's a big change that's happening there. Um we also were hearing from Texas DPS, which will they'll have to get safety plans from these operators.

[00:12:50]Um and the the thing that's always kind of existed, they just have to figure out how to do it well, is the you know, the law enforcement enforcement piece of it, which is ticketing them. And that uh DPS says they'll be ticketing them with or without the signature, obviously without because it'll be driverless. Um but cities, and at least APD has highlighted that they think more needs to be done on that piece. Well, lots more to come. I know you'll be following it. Kelly, thanks so much for joining us. You can watch Kelly's incredible story online at kxan.com. Thanks again for watching Inside the Investigation. You can watch all new episodes of Inside the Investigation on the KXAN Plus app every Friday starting at 1:00 p.m. Just search for KXAN on your preferred streaming devices, such as Roku, Apple TV, and Amazon Fire TV. You can also listen to [music] KXAN's investigative podcast, where we feature audio versions of our weekly Inside the Investigation episodes, like this one.

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