Vendors preparing for a Sunday morning farmers market on Denver’s South Pearl Street were taken aback when a driverless car started cruising through the area during setup.
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“Waymo babe this is a farmers market,” Hearth Denver, a bakery and coffee shop that participates in the market, wrote in a video posted Sunday morning to social media.
The video shows a Waymo-branded car driving along a path between tents on South Pearl Street, intended for pedestrians wandering through the market, as onlookers stare and throw up their arms. The car had its turn signal on in the video and at one point turned toward people standing near vendor tents before stopping.
“Oh my god,” one person can be heard saying in the video. “Waymo’s like ‘get me out of here.’”
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The South Pearl Farmers Market is held from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. every third Sunday between May 3 and Nov. 8.
“Fortunately, (the Waymo) was traveling the correct flow of vendor setup and went slowly, avoiding all obstacles,” Farmers Market and Event Coordinator Marilyn Kahlich said. “No one was hurt, there wasn’t any damage, no one felt in danger.”
But organizers also didn’t know how to stop or redirect the Waymo, and had to follow the car while shouting warnings to others nearby that it was coming, Kahlich said.
A Waymo spokesperson said the autonomous car was already navigating to a destination on South Pearl Street when the farmers market setup began on Sunday. The Waymo quickly identified the situation and maneuvered out of the market area, the spokesperson stated.
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