Recently surfaced footage captures the moment a Waymo self-driving vehicle, under testing in London, collided with crime scene tape and narrowly missed a police car before halting.
The autonomous white vehicle, intended to operate as a driverless taxi, breached the police barrier set up following a double stabbing incident on Harlesden High Street in west London on Wednesday evening.
The video reveals a cacophony of loud beeps as the electric vehicle breaks through the tape and enters the restricted area.
Two police officers are seen approaching the vehicle and engaging with an individual seated inside before the car eventually reverses out of the scene.
Since last autumn, Waymo’s self-driving cars have been operating in London, primarily with ‘safety drivers’ overseeing them.
However, some of these vehicles are now fully operated by artificial intelligence, with a human occupant in the driver’s seat solely for emergency intervention.
A spokesman for the company in New York blamed a person allegedly behind the wheel for the car creeping through the tape.
‘We sincerely apologise for any disruption caused by this validation driver, who was operating the vehicle in manual mode,’ they claimed.
This is the moment a Waymo car drives straight into crime scene tape, narrowly avoiding a police vehicle before coming to a standstill
Two police officers can be seen in conversation with the driver before it reverses away
‘We take this matter seriously and are working with our operations partner to ensure appropriate actions are taken.’
There are significant concerns about the safety of unleashing driverless cars on Britain’s streets, as well as keeping them secure from a host of modern threats such as cyberattacks.
The vehicles, designed to be fully autonomous with no-one in the driver’s seat, are currently being tested in London ahead of a targeted rollout by the fourth quarter of 2026.
The company, a unit of Google parent Alphabet, has grown slowly but steadily over the years in the US despite tough regulations and expensive technology, enabling it to look at scaling up its presence abroad.
Waymo has partnered with Jaguar and its fleet of white vehicles are easily spotted due to their large mounted camera equipment on the top and sides of each car.
The firm, which already operates a completely driverless service in American cities including San Francisco, Miami and Atlanta, has dozens of vehicles roaming London for testing and street mapping purposes.
The vehicles, currently being tested in 19 London boroughs, need still to overcome a host of challenges associated with British streets including roundabouts and zebra crossings.
Dozens of cars are currently being tested in 19 boroughs in London, ahead of a rollout by the end of 2026
A source told the Daily Mail in November: ‘London has been our focus for some time. We are launching sooner in the UK than people think.
‘There are still some regulatory hurdles to get around but we’re very close to getting a deal.
‘London will be first, then major cities like Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham and Edinburgh.’
Once launched, customers will be able to hail the cabs through an app, although airport drop-offs will initially not be available.
Prices will be ‘premium’ but competitive, the firm has said, with rates rising during periods of high demand similarly to existing taxi firms such as Uber.
