Police pull self-driving Waymo for an illegal U-turn, but they can't ticket (www.independent.co.uk)

A Waymo self-driving taxi in San Bruno, California was pulled over by police after making an illegal U-turn, but officers found no human behind the wheel and said they could not issue a moving-violation ticket — “citation books don’t have a box for ‘robot.’” Officers notified Waymo about the apparent “glitch”; the company said its autonomous driving system is closely monitored and it’s investigating. The department’s social-media post went viral, spurring public outrage and questions about how police can get AVs to pull over and who is liable when software errs. The episode highlights a regulatory gap as AVs proliferate: current California rules limit moving-violation citations to human drivers, though a new state law taking effect next year will let police report such incidents to the DMV (which is still defining penalties and procedures). For the AI/ML community this underscores practical enforcement and accountability challenges — from logging and telemetrics for incident reconstruction, to mechanisms for remote intervention, reprogramming or operator-level sanctions. Waymo (Alphabet) already operates in Phoenix, Los Angeles and the Bay Area, so how companies, regulators and police coordinate telemetry, software fixes and liability assignments will shape safety standards and public trust as autonomous systems scale.