Remember when we were kids, and we used to dream about super cool futuristic inventions like flying cars? Well, I guess the future is now, but it’s not exactly what we expected. For example, Waymos have become more popular as of late, but I’d guess a lot of Universal Studios parkgoers were cursing the self-driving car service after one broke down on a one-lane road at a parking structure outside of the theme park.
After going on as many of the rides at Universal Studios Florida as one possibly can or perhaps going to all the best haunted houses at HHN this year, there’s nothing I want more than to go back to my hotel room. I'd imagine plenty of guests feel the same way. However, many couldn't immediately do that because a Waymo broke down in an unfortunate location. Check it out:
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Yeah, this is unfortunate. To make matters worse, it was also one of those one-lane roads with dividers that locked in all the cars behind it. As the video shows, a bunch of the cars kept honking at the Waymo, but it was a goner.
As you may notice in the video, the Waymo had an exclamation mark on its LED screen over the car, which indicates that the self-driving vehicle was dealing with some sort of issue. When this happens on a Waymo, the cars put on their hazards and completely stop until someone from the assistance team can remotely or manually get it back up and running.
Eventually everything got squared away, but what a headache for everyone in that parking structure! You can check out some of the best Instagram reactions to the now-viral video below:
- “Lmao I would love to be stuck inside as everyone else is raging. (As long as I had a snack / charged phone and didn’t have to pee)” - @crypttake
- “Whoever is honking at the Waymo needs a reality check like don’t honk at a robot ugh! Lol” - @coasterunited04
- “Imagine being the person directly behind it just getting honked at like you can move” - @kekeestoft
- “I'm confused... cars break down all the time 🤷🏾♀️🤣 go help them ghosts push 😂” - @princesskut85
- “He is taking his 15 min break 😂” - @coach_dlab24
Obviously, there are also a lot of people with big opinions about whether Waymos should be on the road in the first place. The company has been expanding its fleet of cars all across the United States over the course of this year, with Waymos coming to Orlando specifically earlier this year.
I’m imagining myself being in the self-driving car and feeling the panic as tons of cranky theme park goers are locked in because of the vehicle I’m in, and a new nightmare has been unlocked. But, at the same time, that one-lane road is a problem waiting to happen in and of itself.
There’s been a lot of changes to the Universal Orlando Resort in recent years, with one super awesome update being the opening of Epic Universe. Incidents like this definitely aren’t great PR for Waymo.
