WASHINGTON – Just outside the White House, sirens blared and emergency lights flashed as a multivehicle motorcade carrying Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman sped down Pennsylvania Avenue.
Secret Service and Metropolitan Police officers blocked cars from crossing the street. Commuters sat idling in gridlock for more than 10 minutes.
For D.C. residents, and especially for downtown workers, motorcades are nothing new. But even for the most seasoned Washingtonian, having to pull over as a stream of armored SUVs speeds into the rearview can be jarring.
Driverless cars haven’t yet faced that challenge – nor the mass protests and marches regularly held in the capital.
They may soon, though.
Waymo – whose white robotaxis putter across Phoenix and a handful of other cities – is preparing to enter the D.C. market in coming months.
That could be a “learning challenge,” said David Young, a D.C. resident watching bin Salman’s motorcade Tuesday from a sidewalk. “They’ll figure it out.”
Some road safety advocates oppose the autonomous vehicles’ introduction to the U.S. capital without proof they can operate safely in all situations.
“There are motorcades that happen and can stop traffic from 10 minutes to a half-hour,” said Cathy Chase, president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, a D.C.-based coalition of safety, law enforcement and public health groups. “Will an autonomous vehicle know how to respond to that?”
Waymo launched in 2009 and now operates 2,500 vehicles across Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin and Atlanta. The company says it delivers more than 250,000 driverless rides per week.
Dozens of Jaguar I-PACE sedans – with trained human specialists behind the wheel – have been mapping the federal district since April 2024. Collectively, they have traversed hundreds of thousands of miles, the company said, and motorcades haven’t resulted in any problems so far.
“We’ve seen motorcades dozens if not hundreds of times,” said Ethan Teicher, a Waymo spokesperson. “Our methodical approach is to get experience with things that are marginally unique to every new city that we operate in, and use that experience that we build up over our testing phases.”
Before customers can order a Waymo, though, the City Council would need to approve legislation allowing fully self-driving vehicles in the District of Columbia. The council is awaiting a safety study that was delayed by federal cuts earlier in the year. Funding in the new fiscal year will allow the study to resume.
Young, who works in global standards development, said he has never ridden in a Waymo, though he has been a passenger in a fully self-driving Tesla.
Apart from motorcades, he is concerned about interference from protesters.
At a demonstration against immigration raids in downtown Los Angeles in June, protesters set fire to several Waymos parked nearby, smashing windows, slashing tires and spray-painting the vehicles.
“I think they might be targeted for mischief,” Young said. “Some protesters deliberately try to stop the Waymos by putting something in their way so they can’t go forward or backwards. And, they vandalize them.”
Teicher said protests haven’t posed an issue during testing.
“Waymo Driver” technology uses sensors, cameras and radar “to recognize objects and obstacles in the roadway and respond appropriately,” he said.
The company works with emergency agencies, he added, which allows the cars to respond correctly to unplanned events.
For people who are blind and visually impaired, the potential rollout in Washington is bigger than simply having another rideshare option; it’s a major step towards independence.
“Transportation is always a barrier that we face, because sometimes public transportation doesn’t go exactly where we need it to go or in order to use it, we have to plan trips significantly in advance,” said Chris Danielsen, editor of the Braille Monitor, the flagship magazine of the National Federation of the Blind.
“Waymo has a lot of benefits because it will allow us to enhance our independence even more,” he said.
Tony Stephens, assistant vice president of communications at the American Foundation for the Blind, said traditional rideshare drivers have turned him away after realizing he was traveling with his guide dog. Waymo’s robocars won’t object.
He got a demo ride last year in the district.
“It was a bit overwhelming, to be honest, to have a chance to do something like that,” Stephens said. “It brought tears to my eyes because, you know, one of the biggest challenges of being blind is transportation.”
As for safety, Waymo touts a better record than the “average human driver” – 91% fewer crashes involving serious injuries.
Chase, the safety advocate, called the comparison misleading.
“There’s been numerous comparisons saying that autonomous vehicles are safer – they don’t drive drunk, or distracted, or drowsy,” she said. “Any robotaxi or autonomous vehicle should not be compared to the worst of the human driver, but rather the best.”
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
