Driverless Taxi Gets Stuck In Busy Chick-fil-A Drive Thru

SANTA MONICA, CA — A driverless taxi caused a backup at a busy Chick-fil-A drive-thru in Santa Monica earlier this week after it became stuck, according to video aired by KTLA.

The incident occurred at around 9:30 p.m. Monday at the Lincoln Boulevard Chick-fil-A.

The video shows Chick-fil-A workers standing around the stalled Waymo, which had its hazard lights on and backed up briefly before stopping again.

The man who captured the video told KTLA he waited in line for about half an hour before a worker told him the restaurant, which is drive-thru only, was closed.

A spokesperson for Waymo told KTLA that the driverless vehicle did get stuck and had to be recovered from the restaurant.

Owned by Google's parent company Alphabet, Waymo has offered driverless taxi rides in Los Angeles for about a year. The service functions similarly to Uber, with users hailing a car on an app. One big difference is that Waymo vehicles navigate calmly through Southland traffic all by themselves, with the help of an array of onboard computers and sensors.