Mike Johns boarded a driverless Waymo taxi to an airport in Scottsdale, Arizona, but it began spinning in circles in a parking lot.
He filmed the moment he was trapped in the vehicle, unable to stop the car or get help.
Johns said he almost missed his flight.
That guy is a fucking Karen. Does it suck the car is doing that, sure. But you don’t have to be a complete tool to the customer service representative who has nothing to do with what’s happening right now.
Yes and no. If you’re going to have an independent system like that malfunction then the CS needs a way to save someone from potential harm. People panic and cannot follow instructions and, honestly, this sort of service should have multiple safety features built in if someone is not in control.
Again, the customer service rep didn’t do any of this. They are just following a script.
I’m fairly certain near the end of the video the CS rep says they are going to stop the car for him. So, they have the capabilities on their end, and a self driving vehicle is a bit more of a priority fix for safety of all lives and not just the passenger’s.
It’s not like this is an app malfunctioning where you can close and restart it to force a reset or a shitty uber driver who at least has some form of accountability to the company and their reputation.
I don’t think he was a complete Karen and he brought up several good points. If Elon can remotely unlock a Tesla, then support should be about to abort the ride and stop the car. Problem is this was likely tier 1 support which is just customer issues like billing and what not. He needed like a tier 3 engineer at least. They sure as shit didn’t need him to do something on his phone.
Barely made it thru the video, the guy was so annoying I had to look him up:
Like, yeah it would suck, but it had probably been happening for 2 minutes and he wants them to pay for his flight already.
That site says CEO and based on his entitlement, it seems safe to say he is.
“Spins in circles” makes it sound like the car was drifting, when it was just doing laps around the inside of a parking lot. Also, this guy starts talking about them “taking care” of his flight when this has been happening for what, 5 minutes? I get that it’s annoying, but if 5 minutes circling a parking lot would have made him miss his flight, he’d also have missed it if there was even a hint of bad traffic. He also doesn’t even allow the customer service person to help him.
Also, the screen in the car has a “pull over” button on it. I guess he missed that? Or, maybe he hit it and it was stuck in a loop trying to find a safe place to pull over? It seems to me that a software button on a touch screen isn’t good enough though. They should have a physical big red button that a passenger can’t miss and can hit if something is going wrong. But, that’s just me.
How did he not allow them to help? They should be able to remotely take over the car. He’s correct that they don’t need his phone to correct an issue like this.
He also didn’t know how long this could take. Good to have it on a recording in case he was stuck there for an hour and did miss his flight.
How did he not allow them to help?
He kept talking over the woman who was trying to help. He brought up his flight about 3x. When she asked him to bring up the Waymo app he pushed back rather than just doing what she asked.
He’s right that it’s dumb if he has to use his phone to do something. But, if she thought that would work, why not try it? I suspect the reason he didn’t want to do that is that he was using his phone to record his social media post, and was more concerned with getting his viral post ready vs. trying to actually resolve the situation.
This doesn’t make Waymo look good. Their car getting stuck looping a parking lot is ridiculous. The passenger not having an obvious button to push to get the car to immediately stop (or find a safe place to pull over and stop if it’s on a highway or something) seems like a big oversight too. The person answering the phone also didn’t seem to know how to handle the situation either. Like, this seems like one of the primary things someone on support should know how to do: stop the car and let the passenger get out if there’s a problem. But, she seemed to be fumbling to find a solution.
Having said that, the guy seemed to be making the situation worse instead of trying to resolve it and get to the airport.
I was wondering where to sign up when I thought the car was doing donuts
Did he try opening the door? I haven’t watched it, but whenever I open the door in a waymo, it immediately stops
I don’t know, I doubt it.
I didn’t watch the video, but was he really not capable of opening the doors? I’ve taken a waymo quite a few times and it used to try dropping me off in front my neighbors house instead of where I live, so I would just open the door and it would immediately stop
Wouldn’t be as good a video tho
I think he’s trapped in that he couldn’t get out of a moving vehicle. Also, it might not let him out for “safety” issues.
That’s interesting. It always stops for me whenever I open the door. I wonder if I’m special🤔
While it’s moving?
Yes. It immediately stops when you open the door.
Whipping shitties with the basilisk
You should watch Silicon Vally if you haven’t already.
Awwrrr great. Technology… solving problems… that we did not had before.
you spin me right round baby right round…
That’s just the astronaut training feature, not sure why he’s complaining.
