Another wayward Waymo: Self-driving car causes chaos at Downtown Denver school

School drop-off is already one of the most stressful parts of any parent’s day. On Monday morning, parents at Downtown Denver Expeditionary School had to deal with something new: an empty Waymo that seemed determined to go the wrong way down their drop-off alley.

A woman named Lauren was walking to work when she saw the driverless car turn the wrong way into the alley the school uses for student drop-off. In her video, the Waymo keeps inching toward a long line of cars full of parents who were either waiting to drop off their kids or trying to leave. The robot car didn’t seem to get the message, and nobody was inside to roll down a window and apologize. “So ridiculous,” one person can be heard saying.

Lauren told 9NEWS that school staff kept the kids safe the whole time. The Waymo still turned a routine morning into a standoff between a line of minivans and a car with nobody behind the wheel. 9NEWS asked Waymo what happened, and the company hadn’t responded.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because Denver’s driverless cars are having quite a run. One drove into the South Pearl Street Farmers Market while vendors were setting up, and another got pelted with a full carton of eggs near downtown. Waymo says its cars are safe, and riders like how convenient they are. But if you’re in a school pickup line this week and see a car with a spinning sensor on the roof heading your way, you might want to honk early.