- cross-posted to:
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- cross-posted to:
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- [email protected]
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.
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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
There’s a button inside to signal the car to pull over. He’s only “trapped” in the sense that he might miss his flight if he has to wait for a different car to come pick him up.
We’re in the mirror verse. Satire writers wrote this entire universe. Next thing he’s going to be auto driven into a shipping container and sent to a private island of a billionaire because the car was called home
With nothing to keep him company but a bottle of adderall
“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.
To be fair, he couldn’t have used the app since he was recording the incident for social media clout. So much more important.
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’m an Uber driver. This is what I always tells my customers: if you don’t like the way I’m driving just literally open the car door while we’re in motion and I’ll end the ride immediately.
It’s a really good system. Makes a lot of sense.
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.
Please stop bending over backwards for the corporations. The customer shouldn’t have to control the taxi when they’re calling for emergency support like this. Should he just crawl into the front seat and drive the thing for them as well?
He was on his way to a flight. Flights are expensive. Of course he wants reassurance that his costs will be covered if he misses it due to their failings. He has no idea for how long he’s going to be continually going in circles and we don’t know for how long he’d already been going in circles.
This is a customer in distress and you’re shitting on them because they had a stressed tone towards the mega-corp representative? Shameful.
Whipping shitties with the basilisk
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.
Yes, but as a customer, who is probably driving in circles for a while now and needs to catch a flight, I would want this fixed right now.
I mean who am I going to ask to stop the car otherwise? How can you be so numb? Of course it’s not the CS-reps fault, but the customer is completely in the right to react like that in a stressy situation when they have no one else to help them?
I mean who am I going to ask to stop the car otherwise?
There is a button 12" from his face that says “Stop”. He could’ve pressed it.
I saw no button.
Watched the video again and man he stayed relatively calm. I have no idea wtf is wrong with y’all calling him a Karen…Yeah this whole thread reads like a character assassination
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.
And how do we know his first move wasn’t to try using the app to get the car to stop?
That’s a very good point.
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.
“The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.
It will with AI.”
This dude really ought to hire a proofreader.
That site says CEO and based on his entitlement, it seems safe to say he is.
This is honestly like a parody.
Has it been hacked? Jesus, no! That would’ve been way worse. It’s a parking lot so probably the car can’t find its exit.
What bothers me is that the woman in the other end doesn’t have the option to control the car herself. That would’ve been the very first thing to do.
Might want to write some code for detecting loops then
Like 30 seconds into the phone call she flat out says they’re taking control remotely.
He just keeps talking nonsense to try and make it take longer for the video. Probably wasn’t even going to the airport lol.
Dude’s whole job is this stupid shit and convincing people he’s a big enough deal they should pay him to talk to them
you spin me right round baby right round…
Yeah, that’s the time I start jumping over the seat to pull a brake or something. Needs to be a hardware kill switch in the passenger reach here, no calling in or hoping some app works.
Does it have a brake petal? If so I’d imagine that it would still function, even in FSD. You may still be stuck inside the car if the doors won’t unlock until the trip is over.
It does, you can see it go down when it’s breaking
Does it have a brake petal?
The strongest part of a flower!
Hah i’m not even editing that, too funny.
That’s just the astronaut training feature, not sure why he’s complaining.
Shouldn’t have gotten in that car in the first place, Mike. What a Karen.
He’s a Karen, but it has nothing to do with the cars. Self driving cars will definitely be the norm in the future (as long as society doesn’t collapse). This incident is so minor. It’s only a story because the dude was an idiot and people love shitting on innovation
Turns out innovation loves shitting on people too
