Woman and friends trapped in driverless car, TikTok video shows. Waymo responds
A woman says she became trapped inside a malfunctioning driverless car during a day out with friends, but the autonomous rideshare company Waymo is pushing back against that story.
In a popular TikTok video posted April 21, Becky Levin Navarro is seen walking on a sidewalk near Austin’s MoPac expressway after a Waymo ride gone wrong.
Navarro and a group of friends got into the self-driving vehicle and requested a ride to Deep Eddy Cabaret on Austin’s west side — and at first it seemed like they would make it without any issue, but then the SUV continued driving past their destination, she said.
“The Waymo didn’t let us out and instead kept going the wrong direction towards downtown,” before eventually stopping in a “horrible spot” under an expressway bridge, Navarro said.
The car wouldn’t move and the group couldn’t get out, she said. They sat there for five minutes while incoming traffic drove past, drivers honking at them for stopping in a potentially hazardous spot, she said.
Video shows the group talking to a member of Waymo’s customer support team while in the vehicle. Navarro says the doors only unlocked after she mentioned they were recording a video for TikTok.
The video had about 361,000 views as of the morning of Tuesday, April 22, and more than 1,400 comments, with some encouraging Navarro to sue, and others saying they “will never drive in an automated ride share vehicle.”
Waymo responds
In a statement to McClatchy News, a Waymo spokesperson said riders can stop the vehicle whenever they want, and open the doors by pulling twice on the handle.
Waymo said Navarro or one of her fellow riders pushed the “pull over” button, causing the vehicle to stop on the side of a road with a sidewalk. The group could have exited at any time, and customer support was not needed to open the doors.
Incidents like Navarro’s have been reported in the past, including a man whose trip to the airport was delayed when the Waymo vehicle he entered began driving in circles around a parking lot.
Earlier in April, a Waymo car got stuck at a Chick-Fil-A drive-thru in Santa Monica, causing a slowdown.
However, the Waymo vehicles have been involved in relatively few crashes since they began cruising the streets, and most of those were the fault of human drivers, not the automated vehicle, Ars Technica reported.
Still, it may be some time before most people warm up to the idea of catching a lift from a driverless car.
Or as one commenter on Navarro’s video put it, “I’d rather call my ex to pick me up.”
This story was originally published April 22, 2025 at 11:00 AM.