“Why is this thing going around in circles ?”: He finds himself stuck for long minutes in a driverless taxi that keeps moving

Un taxi sans chauffeur Waymo à Los Angeles. (Illustration) EPA – ALLISON DINNER

Un homme qui voulait se rendre à un aéroport près de Scottsdale, en Arizona (États-Unis), a pris un taxi autonome. Mais ce dernier a bien failli rater son vol après avoir connu une sacrée mésaventure.

Mike Johns is an American from Los Angeles. A week ago, while in Scottsdale, Arizona, he decided to fly home to California. To get to the airport, he decided to take a self-driving taxi, a Waymo, which is a subsidiary of Google. When he arrived at his destination, the vehicle malfunctioned, reports CBS News.

200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000

“They told me to try to fix it myself”

While in the airport parking lot, Mike Johns' seatbelt gets stuck and the taxi doesn't stop. Instead, it keeps driving and going in circles. “Why is this thing going in circles? I put my seatbelt on, I can't get out of the car. Has it been hacked? What's going on? It's like I'm in a science fiction movie”, he wonders.

The man decides to contact a Waymo manager to find a solution. Luckily, the self-driving taxi company was able to launch a remote update to the vehicle that fixed the problem. It managed to take off after being stuck inside for about five minutes. However, Waymo’s service is being singled out.

“The worst part is that they told me to try to fix it myself, with my smartphone,”, Mike Johns chants. For its part, Waymo indicated that the problem was fixed in “a little over five minutes”. Again, the Los Angeles native is not satisfied with this answer. “Where's the empathy? Where's the human connection in all this?” What's certain is that Mike Johns is not likely to be getting back into a self-driving taxi anytime soon.