Waymo says expecting driverless taxis to stay out of bike lanes is unrealistic

If Waymo doesn't respect the Social Contract like this, they shouldn't expect it to be available to them. It should be open season on Waymo sabotage/destruction. Human lives are more valuable that Waymo.

Then it should be unrealistic to expect they are allowed to operate, frankly

I guess bicyclists not carrying sawed off shot guns to shoot at robot murder cars is also unrealistic.

If they can't follow the law then why the fuck would they be allowed on the road?

Maybe.. driverless vehicle are unrealistic then?

I guess we just have to expect to be killed by Waymo. /s

We were promised these things would be better, and safer than human drivers. Now, even with the assistance of remote human drivers, they can't follow the law?

No, you don't get to move the goal posts and say we should still accept them because they don't drive any worse than humans. If that's the new standard then what the fuck do we need these things for? What is their purpose, but to take jobs?

Cities that want to keep cars out of bike lanes should keep all cars out of them, autonomous or not, by ticketing them. But they don't, so taxis and delivery drivers stop in them. That's traffic enforcement's fault.

Given that human drivers stop in bike lanes, Waymo then has a tradeoff:

1) Be the only ones to follow the letter of the law, break a lot of people's expectations, and catch backlash for disrupting traffic.

2) Follow the most common expectation, even if wrong, and incrementally add to the problem.

IMO, cyclists shouldn't lobby Waymo directly, but should lobby cities to actually enforce the rules on everyone. Then Waymo would fall in line naturally. And if they're inclined to take direct action against Waymo's they should also act against Uber and DoorDash drivers who are a far bigger problem by volume (and wait time for deliveries).

The article is a steaming pile of garbage. I was ready to hate on Waymo, but the article is conflating what happened in the US with whatever might or might not happen in the UK.
It's pretty obvious the AVs need to observe the traffic rules, otherwise they will be fined into oblivion and have their licence revoked. The click bait worked.

In the provided preview picture, isn't that Abbey road where the Beatles took their famous album cover picture where they cross the street?

It absolutely is!

Waymo now fucked across most continents. Shoots self in both feet.