A driverless Waymo car rolled between vendor tents at Denver's South Pearl Farmers Market early Sunday morning, catching organizers off guard as they scrambled to warn vendors and shoppers before anyone got hurt. The car turned toward people near the tents before coming to a stop, but no one was injured and nothing was damaged in the encounter.
Video of the incident shows the Waymo-branded vehicle driving along a path between tents on South Pearl Street, according to the Denver Post. Market coordinator Marilyn Kahlich told the paper the car at least moved carefully once it was inside the market footprint. “Fortunately, (the Waymo) was traveling the correct flow of vendor setup and went slowly, avoiding all obstacles,” Kahlich said. Even so, she and other organizers had to follow the car while shouting warnings to others nearby that it was coming, since they had no way to stop or redirect it themselves.
According to organizers cited by Denver7, the Waymo entered the market before it opened to the public, turning north onto South Pearl Street and driving around barricades set up at Washington Street and Florida Avenue before continuing through the market itself. Organizers had placed all barricades and staff at the market's entrance, and the episode has them rethinking whether access points need to allow authorized vehicles onto the site during setup without leaving an opening for others to slip through.
Waymo Says the Car Was Already En Route
A Waymo spokesperson said the vehicle was already navigating to a destination on South Pearl Street when the farmers market setup began, and that it identified the situation and worked to move out of the area, the Denver Post reported. The company said the trust and safety of the community is its top priority and that it is dedicated to learning from the situation and continuing to improve road safety in the cities it serves. The South Pearl Farmers Market itself runs from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. every third Sunday between May 3 and Nov. 8, meaning the vehicle showed up during the narrow setup window before vendors and shoppers fully arrive.
It remains unclear exactly how the Waymo entered the market area in the first place. As KOSI 101 reported, that detail was not immediately clear as of publication. The market sits in Denver's Platt Park neighborhood, a residential pocket where the weekly market draws a steady crowd of shoppers browsing produce and craft stands along South Pearl Street.
Broader Questions About Autonomous Vehicles and Street Closures
The incident is raising broader questions about how autonomous vehicles navigate temporary street closures, special events and crowded pedestrian-heavy spaces, per the same outlet's report. Temporary closures and events can complicate things for self-driving systems when changes to a route are not properly reported, mapped or physically blocked off, the report noted.
Waymo has leaned heavily on its safety record as it expands into more cities. Through March 2026, the company said it had driven 220.6 million rider-only miles without a human driver behind the wheel, according to Waymo. Over that distance, Waymo reported 94% fewer serious-injury-or-worse crashes than the average human-driver benchmark in its operating cities, along with 82% fewer injury-causing crashes and 93% fewer pedestrian crashes involving injuries. Sunday's episode in Platt Park did not result in any injuries, but it showed how quickly a routine market setup can turn into a scramble when a driverless car ends up somewhere organizers never expected it.
