Waymo Driverless Taxi Attacked in London: Dashcam Footage Shows Brick Hurled at Vehicle

Dashcam footage circulating on social media appears to show one of Waymo’s London test vehicles being attacked, with a brick thrown at the car before it pulls away through a red light.

The clip, shared on the DriverMatty Facebook page, shows a lone individual targeting the distinctive white Jaguar I-PACE — the same model Waymo is currently using across its London pilot scheme. After the attack, the vehicle moves off through a red signal, which would only have been possible because of the safety driver on board. Unlike Waymo’s fully autonomous operations in the United States, every Waymo vehicle currently on UK roads has a human in the driver’s seat.

Why There’s a Driver in Every London Waymo

Waymo’s London cars are not yet operating without supervision. The company began its UK pilot in April 2026, with vehicles mapping the capital’s streets ahead of a planned commercial robotaxi launch. The trial is being run across 19 London boroughs including Lambeth, Westminster, and Kensington and Chelsea.

The Department for Transport has been clear about the rules of the trial. A spokesperson told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that the Waymo vehicles currently on London’s roads are in a testing phase only, are not carrying passengers, and have safety drivers on board at all times.

That detail matters in this case. A fully autonomous vehicle would not be expected to run a red light to escape a threat — the decision to do so would sit with the human driver, who would arguably be acting in self-defence and in the interest of getting out of harm’s way. UK road law does allow drivers to deviate from traffic signals in genuine emergencies, although any such decision is open to police scrutiny after the fact.

Not the First Incident in the London Pilot

The brick attack joins a growing list of incidents involving Waymo’s London fleet since testing began. In late April, a Waymo vehicle drove through an active police cordon in Harlesden while officers were investigating a double stabbing on Harlesden High Street. Waymo confirmed the car was being manually driven at the time, and the validation driver involved has been suspended.

More recently, residents of a quiet London street reported a Waymo car waking them up at around 4am after repeatedly attempting to navigate into a dead-end cobbled road — an incident that happened three times in a single week according to neighbours.

The Harlesden incident in particular has triggered a political response. Brent Green Party has launched a petition urging the Mayor of London, Sir Sadiq Khan, to suspend the trial. Green councillor Amandine Alexandre described the viral footage as deeply concerning. A spokesperson for the Mayor said Sir Sadiq is determined to harness the opportunities presented by new technologies including autonomous vehicles, but also recognises the potential negative impact on jobs and the economy.

What This Means for London’s Drivers and the Public

For the capital’s professional drivers — Uber drivers, private hire, and the black cab trade — the Waymo trial has always been a tense subject. The promise of a robotaxi service operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with no driver to pay, is a clear commercial threat. But this latest incident raises a different kind of question: how will an unsupervised driverless car react when it’s the target of an attack?

In this case, the safety driver appears to have made a judgement call to get the vehicle out of a dangerous situation. When Waymo eventually removes the human from the driver’s seat — currently targeted for September, subject to regulatory approval — that judgement will sit entirely with the software. Waymo has previously stated its cars are involved in five times fewer injury-causing crashes than vehicles with human drivers, but the company has not publicly detailed how its system handles deliberate attacks on the vehicle or its passengers.

It is also worth noting that all of the Waymo Jaguar I-PACE vehicles in London are left-hand drive, because the fleet was originally built for the firm’s US operations.

The Metropolitan Police have not, at the time of writing, made any public statement about the attack shown in the dashcam clip. DM News will update this article if further information becomes available.

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