Imagine this: You decide to try Google’s self-driving Waymo taxi. You’re looking at your phone when you feel a sudden bump. The car attempts to drive down light-rail tracks in the middle of Phoenix, Arizona. A train heads straight toward you. With no other option, you leap from the car to avoid a deadly crash.

That nightmare became reality for a Waymo passenger last weekend. Fortunately, train operators noticed the vehicle in time and stopped. “Light rail operations staff responded to the scene, and Waymo was contacted.”

How the incident disrupted transit

With the self-driving taxi blocking the tracks, train operators had to act fast. A Valley Metro spokesperson explained what happened next. “To minimize service impacts, northbound and southbound trains exchanged passengers before reversing direction to continue service.”

The quick response prevented serious delays. Waymo cleared the stranded vehicle from the tracks within 15 minutes.

Andrew Maynard, an emerging and transformative technology professor at Arizona State University, commented on the incident. “I actually felt a little sorry for the car. It obviously made a bad decision and got itself in a difficult place.” He added that self-driving cars “are safer than human drivers because they don’t have distractions.” He described the taxi steering onto train tracks as “one of those edge cases.”

Still, Waymo continues to refine its driving algorithms using real-world data. The company charges passengers while it collects that data. That decision puts riders, nearby drivers, and even train passengers at risk.