Denver’s first Waymo crash reported, causes three-vehicle accident
Aug 28, 2026, 4:10 PM | Updated: Aug 31, 2026, 3:15 pm
It was inevitable. The driverless cars have been cruising Denver streets for months, and now the city has its first Waymo crash on the books. But before you start composing your “I told you so” tweets about the robot uprising, you should probably know: the Waymo didn’t cause it. A human did. Because of course a human did.
The three-vehicle chain-reaction crash happened around 2:30 p.m. Thursday near West 8th Avenue and Delaware Street in the Lincoln Park neighborhood, not far from Denver Health. According to Denver police and Waymo, the driverless vehicle was approaching an intersection when it steadily slowed down and came to a complete stop to yield to a pedestrian waiting on the curb to cross the street. The guy who was driving a van directly behind the Waymo managed to stop in time. But another guy, approaching from behind, did not, rear-ending the van and pushing it into the back of the unoccupied Waymo. The pedestrian, for what it’s worth, crossed the street without incident. The robot did its job. The human behind it got cited for following too closely.
Both human drivers questioned why the Waymo stopped in a travel lane with no stop sign, no traffic signal and no marked crosswalk. “Insane. Like, why are you stopped?” one of the drivers told CBS Colorado. “It’s a self-driving car on a busy street, but you’re stopped, not even at an intersection.” But Colorado law actually backs the Waymo here, under state statute, drivers must yield to pedestrians at any intersection, including unmarked crosswalks, which exist at every corner where two streets meet. Denver police said there is “no indication that the Waymo vehicle caused the crash” and confirmed this is the first reported collision involving a Waymo in Denver.
The crash comes while Waymo is still in its final testing phase before opening its fully autonomous ride-hailing service to the public, and it’s already giving Denver a preview of the debate to come: the robots follow the law to the letter, and the humans behind them apparently don’t.
