Austin Traffic Jam Started by Army of Self-Driving Cars

Malfunctioning self-driving cars are becoming a nuisance in Austin, TX, and residents aren’t happy.

Multiple Tiktok videos have recently sprouted up, showing residential streets clogged with self-driving cars owned by a company called Cruise. One video shows a street brought to a standstill by the self-driving cars, which are haphazardly clustered together as if they all converged on an intersection and then stopped. Although each car’s headlights are on, none of the cars appear to be doing anything. The video’s caption reads, “These self driving cars caused a massive traffic jam in Austin, Texas.” Honking can be heard in the background of the video.

Another video shows a long line of cars stopped along a street at night. Some of the cars’ hazard lights are on, and one car appears to suddenly back up a few feet before stopping again. All of the cars look like they simply put on the breaks in the middle of a trip and stopped where they were.

The problem has been happening for at least a month now, with Austin news station KXAN reporting on the problem in August. “I see [the cars] all night long with their blinkers and hazards on, just all around my neighborhood,” Austin resident Raina Hornaday told KXAN.

Other residents have complained about the lack of city oversight over self-driving cars. “I see this as another time where a company that probably isn’t even local is parachuting in and using our roads as a guinea pig,” Austin resident Darcy Caballero told The Daily Texan.

According to The Daily Texan, the Texas legislature took the power to regulate autonomous vehicles out of the hands of local governments. “Right now, we have to settle for working with these companies, relaying our constituents’ concerns to them, and hoping they’ll be cooperative with our Transportation, Police, Fire, and EMS departments as they figure out in real-time how to safely operate AVs on public streets,” said Austin city council member Zohaib Qadri.

Cruise itself doesn’t appear to have directly addressed the problem yet, with a spokesperson saying merely, “While our work is never done, our technology is designed to keep our riders and communities safe.”

(via KXAN and The Daily Texan, featured image: PonyWang / Getty Images)