In Scottsdale, Arizona, a man’s Monday morning commute turned into a frustrating and surreal experience when a self-driving Waymo taxi malfunctioned, trapping him in an endless loop around a parking lot. What should have been a routine trip to the airport for Mike Johns instead became a maddening showcase of the pitfalls of autonomous vehicle technology.
Johns, hoping to take advantage of the futuristic promise of driverless rides, was picked up by one of Waymo’s autonomous cars. However, instead of delivering him to the airport promptly, the car suffered a routing glitch and began circling aimlessly.
Johns documented his ordeal on his phone, venting his frustration as precious minutes ticked away before his flight’s departure. “Why is this happening to me on a Monday?” he lamented in a video posted online. “This car is just going in circles. I’m getting dizzy. I’ve got a flight to catch, and I’m stuck in this thing!”
To make matters worse, Johns couldn’t simply exit the vehicle. For safety reasons, Waymo’s cars are designed to keep passengers securely inside during operation, leaving him trapped in the bizarre scenario.
A representative from Waymo support eventually chimed in through the car’s communication system. “I’m calling from Waymo support because I received a notification that your car might be experiencing some routing issues,” they explained. But for Johns, the scripted apology was cold comfort. “Has this been hacked? What’s going on? I feel like I’m in a movie,” he exclaimed.
After eight dizzying laps around the parking lot, Waymo support remotely brought the car to a stop. While Johns ultimately made it to the airport just in time for his flight, the ordeal left him deeply skeptical of driverless technology.
“My Waymo experience sucked,” Johns wrote in a LinkedIn post recounting the incident. “This autonomous vehicle said to heck with GPS and went around in circles. I’ll keep it old-fashioned and just #Lyft or #Uber from now on.”
The incident has reignited concerns about the safety and reliability of self-driving technology, particularly as companies like Waymo push to expand their presence in cities across the U.S. Critics argue that rolling out such advanced technology before ensuring its reliability puts passengers and public trust at risk.
One commenter on Johns’ post summed up the sentiment succinctly: “Prime example of how putting a product out too soon without the right quality control can cause problems.”
For many, this episode underscores a growing skepticism about the tech industry’s push to automate everything, often at the expense of reliability and common sense. While Silicon Valley champions self-driving cars as the future of transportation, real-world glitches like Johns’ experience suggest that this vision may still be far from ready for prime time.
For now, Mike Johns—and likely many others—will stick with the tried-and-true method of hailing a ride from a human driver. As he quipped, “At least they know where they’re going.”
