Footage shows man trapped in driverless car that keeps going round in circles - causing him to miss his flight

Mike Johns, a tech entrepreneur from Los Angeles, filmed the ordeal which shows him sat in the back of his Waymo ride which wouldn’t stop circling a car park. Mike calls Waymo customer service to report the issue, telling them he's in danger of missing his flight but they’re unable to stop the car in its tracks.

Mike wondered if he was being pranked, and said it feels like he's in a science fiction thriller. Ultimately, Mike says his Waymo drove him around in eight circles and he ended up missing his flight.

Mike claims he's yet to be reimbursed for the missed flight, ripping Waymo for having no empathy and ignoring him with a customer service division that's fully automated and run by artificial intelligence. He posted the video on LinkedIn saying: “I got a flight to catch. Why is this thing going in a circle? I’m getting dizzy,” Johns said. “It’s circling around a parking lot. I got my seat belt on. I can’t get out of the car. Has this been hacked? What’s going on? I feel like I’m in the movies. Is somebody playing a joke on me?”.

On his social media post, Johns, who also works on AI initiatives, according to his LinkedIn profile, said Waymo had not followed up with him after the experience. “You’d think by now Waymo would email, text or call for a follow-up,” he wrote.

A Waymo spokesperson wrote in an email to The Times on Sunday that the incident occurred in mid-December and that the rider was delayed by roughly five minutes, then driven to his destination. The spokesperson said the software glitch had since been resolved and that Johns was not charged for the ride. They added that the company had since tried to follow up with him via voicemail.

Waymo recently opened its services to all riders after first rolling out a pilot program to select users. The robotaxis launched in Los Angeles last autumn. Waymo’s goal is to reduce traffic injuries and fatalities through autonomous-driving technology, and riders and proponents of the service have lauded it as a safe and easy alternative to human drivers.