A Waymo customer blasted the self-driving taxi service on social media.
In a viral TikTok video with 564,300 views, user Becky Levin Navarro (@beckypearlatx) said the car failed to get her and some friends to their final destination.
It even put them in a very dangerous predicament.
“This is the most insane thing,” the woman began in the clip.
Most of the clip was recorded from under Austin, Texas’s MoPac Expressway as cars zoomed by.
The women were allegedly left there when the Waymo car stopped moving.
What happened?
According to Navarro, the entire ordeal began when the car began to drive in the wrong direction. The women asked to be let out of the car.
Instead, the vehicle stopped at the side of the highway and wouldn’t let them out.
“No one from customer support would actually move the Waymo,” the woman said.
A customer service worker even admitted that they were simply unable to get the cars to move.
“I understand, but there’s no way for us to just physically move the cars,” Navarro recorded Waymo’s customer support representative responding to the crisis.
The woman claimed they were eventually let out of the vehicle, but only after they threatened to go live on social media.
However, a Waymo spokesperson disputed that claim.
“Waymo riders always have the ability to pause their ride and exit the vehicle when desired,” the spokesperson told The Daily Dot via email. “Passengers can exit the vehicle by pulling the handle twice – once to unlock and another to open the door.”
According to the company, during their ride, the passengers in the video pressed a button that made the car pull over to the side of a 30 mph road with a sidewalk. Waymo also claimed the riders could have safely exited at any time and and its support team never remotely unlocked the car.
Still, the women in the clip gave the company’s service a poor rating.
“Ava, what are you rating the Waymo right now?” the woman asked her friend as they walked along the highway.
“A one-star because it wouldn’t let me do zero,” the woman responded.
Waymo safety and security concerns
This is not the first time someone has gone viral with complaints about Waymo.
A few weeks ago, the Daily Dot reported on a woman’s viral clip that captured her Waymo vehicle trying to make a dangerous turn.
The car ended up stuck at the intersection.
Another viral video captured the moment a Waymo car got stuck in a parking lot. It drove in circles until an employee helped it navigate its way out.
Waymo currently operates its robotaxi service in Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Austin.
@beckypearlatx Zero stars for waymo. When we pulled up next to Deep Eddy Cabaret and the waymo didn’t let us out and instead kept going the wrong direction towards downtown we said “please let us out here” it wouldn’t let us out so it headed east, turned around back towards deep eddy cabaret and then STOPPED in a horrible spot to stop. We kept asking for it to move and customer service refused. #waymo #tiktok ♬ original sound – Becky Levin Navarro
Commenters respond
In the clip’s comments section, many had negative things to say about the service and other driverless vehicles.
“Waymo and other driverless vehicles need to be taken off the streets,” one viewer wrote.
“They need to be sued for this. They literally put you in the path of danger and then locked you in the car???” Lorena Swan commented.
“The fact that people are locked in is 1000% why I will never drive in an automated ride share vehicle,” user Lorie said.
“Never getting in a Waymo. I’d rather call my ex to pick me up,” Pam Loraze added.
The Daily Dot reached out to Navarro via email for comment.
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