Can a cop pull over a Waymo?

Yes. Waymo vehicles are programmed to recognize emergency vehicle lights and sirens and pull over safely. Officers can interact with the vehicle's exterior screens and contact Waymo's operations team via a phone number displayed on the vehicle. Because there is no human driver, Waymo as the operator (not an individual) is responsible for vehicle violations. Police interactions with Waymo vehicles have been documented in Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, and Waymo has published guidance for first responders on how to interact with the vehicle.

The officer-interaction surface operates at four layers. Exterior screens display basic information and can show messages to officers. A Waymo support phone number is posted on the vehicle; officers call to reach Waymo's operations team directly within seconds. Remote assistance can communicate with the officer in real time and provide vehicle state, trip details, and any other information the officer needs. A field-response team can be dispatched if the situation requires a physical Waymo representative on scene. The general police-guidance pattern across operating metros is: call the posted number first; use exterior screens for basic identification; coordinate with operations team for escalation.

Waymo as the operator is the responsible party for vehicle-violation tickets. Because there is no human driver in a Waymo during commercial service, the legal mechanics of "ticketing the driver" don't apply. State and city traffic codes are evolving to accommodate this: some jurisdictions have explicit AV-operator-liability provisions; others handle it under existing fleet-vehicle frameworks. For criminal matters involving a rider (e.g., if a rider committed a crime), the rider is the responsible party, not Waymo. The vehicle-violation-vs-criminal-matter split is editorially load-bearing.

There have been a handful of documented incidents where Waymo vehicles did not respond as expected to police signaling. For example, briefly leaving a stop before officers were finished with the interaction. Waymo treats these as software issues to be analyzed and patched. They are uncommon but not zero; Waymo and law enforcement continue to refine the interaction patterns. Per DEPLOY's framework on safety incidents, the framework reads misbehavior incidents at honest-disclosure depth: the pattern is "uncommon, acknowledged, patched" rather than "zero" or "hidden."

Waymo coordinates with the responding officer to address the rider while the vehicle stays parked. The vehicle-violation-vs-criminal-matter responsibility split routes criminal matters involving a rider to the rider as responsible party. The handling differs by purpose: routine traffic stops (Waymo pulls over + officer interacts via phone/screens); suspicious activity reports (Waymo coordinates with responding officer to address rider while vehicle stays parked); active crime in progress (handled through Waymo's emergency channel with rapid coordination). For crashes and emergencies, see what happens if a Waymo gets in an accident.

Yes. Police departments in the metros where Waymo operates have published or internally distributed guidance for officers on how to interact with autonomous vehicles. The general pattern: call the posted Waymo number first for routine pull-overs; use the exterior screens for basic identification; coordinate with Waymo's operations team for any escalation. The 2024 SFPD memo and similar guidance continue to evolve as the AV fleet population grows. Waymo has published guidance for first responders on how to interact with the vehicle. The codified guidance enables cross-departmental interaction pattern consistency as the AV fleet population grows.