Waymo Passenger Flees After Car Drives on Phoenix Light Rail Tracks
12th January 2026
A Waymo was caught on camera driving down Phoenix light rail tracks this week, forcing a passenger to flee the car before it continued along the tracks near an oncoming train.
Video taken by a bystander near Central and Southern avenues shows the moment the self-driving car stops on the tracks just before an oncoming light rail approaches. The passenger runs out of the vehicle before the car continues to drive down the tracks near another train.
“I actually felt a little sorry for the car. It obviously made a bad decision and got itself in a difficult place,” said Andrew Maynard, an emerging and transformative technology professor at ASU.
Maynard said while these situations are rare, they do happen. “This is exactly one of those edge cases, what we call them. Something unexpected where the machine drove like a machine rather than a person,” Maynard said.
Not yet ready for prime time.