Waymo responds to viral video showing weird vehicle behavior

When an autonomous vehicle company like Waymo announces it is expanding to a new city, locals are definitely excited about the future of transportation in that city.

Waymo officially launched in Atlanta in June 2025, but less than a year later, residents of at least one suburban Atlanta neighborhood are getting a frightening view of the future.

Residents of Atlanta’s exclusive Buckhead neighborhood have filmed dozens of empty Waymo driverless taxis circling their neighborhood in recent weeks. The video shows the vehicles blocking traffic as they struggle to navigate the narrow residential streets.

“We’re families. We have small animals and pets, got kids getting on the bus in the morning, and it just doesn’t feel safe to have that traffic,” a resident told the local news, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Residents said that they reached out to Waymo and did not receive a response, so they contacted their City Council member and representatives from the Georgia Department of Transportation.

“We would like to just see them stay on main traffic roads,” a resident told Atlanta’s Channel 2. “I don’t think there’s any reason for them to be on small, residential cul-de-sacs if they’re not picking up somebody.”

Waymo partners with Uber in cities like Atlanta.

Smith Collection/Gado on Getty Images

Waymo responds to viral video of cars invading quiet Atlanta neighborhood

Residents of the Atlanta neighborhood have been baffled by the sudden appearance of multiple Waymos circling their homes, with one saying they had seen 50 cars one morning.

One resident placed a children at play sign in the road, which caused even more confusion, causing about eight of the robotaxis to get stuck on the street as they tried to turn around. After residents complained that they could not get a response from Waymo, the company has released a statement about what is going on.

“At Waymo, we are committed to being good neighbors. We take community feedback seriously and have already worked with our fleet partner to address this routing behavior,” a company spokesperson told TheStreet.

Uber, Waymo’s rideshare partner, handles fleet positioning and ensuring there are enough vehicles to service Waymo’s coverage area in Atlanta. The company says it is working with Uber to make sure this issue doesn’t occur again.

“We value our relationship with Atlanta residents and remain focused on providing a seamless, respectful, and safe experience for riders and residents alike,” Waymo said.

Inoperable Waymos cause a scene, traffic jam in Atlanta

Last month,  another video from Atlanta went viral, showing a group of three Waymos completely blocking traffic in one direction of a street, each stopped at the white line with a broken traffic light flashing red.

The video shows drivers stuck behind cars as people exit their vehicles and walk around the intersection, filming the chaos.

This isn’t the first time something like this has happened.

Related: Waymo recalls thousands of robotaxis for surprising reason

Waymo was forced to suspend service in San Francisco because its vehicles apparently did not know the “four-way-stop” rule that applies to intersections with inoperable traffic lights.

The vehicles were filmed stuck at numerous intersections, unsure how to navigate the situation, causing even more turmoil on the roads as drivers slowly inch past electricity-less city blocks.

The jury is still out on whether AVs are safer than human drivers

Waymo, the most active of the U.S. robotaxi options, says that, compared to those with human drivers, its autonomous vehicles have been involved in 90% fewer crashes resulting in serious injuries. 

Auto insurance companies have a lot at stake with this new technology. Autonomous vehicles could change insurance pricing at the most minute level. The question is: will it raise rates or lower them?

Right now, the industry is in a wait-and-see period.

“I don’t think they have the data yet to make that kind of assessment,” David Kidd, vice president for vehicle research at the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety, told Bloomberg when asked which drivers are more likely to crash: autonomous or human. “Most insurers are extremely conservative, and they rely on historical data to assess risk accurately. There just isn’t enough information available yet.”

Trent Victor, Waymo’s director of safety research and best practices, recently gave an interview saying much of the same, acknowledging that, “there is not yet sufficient mileage to make statistical conclusions about fatal crashes alone,” adding that “as we accumulate more mileage, it will become possible to make statistically significant conclusions on other subsets of data, including fatal crashes as its own category.”

Waymo vehicles have driven well over 130 million miles across the fleet and have been involved in at least two fatal crashes, MSN reported. However, the autonomous vehicle was not directly found responsible for either of them. Human drivers average about 123 million car miles traveled for every fatality, according to the IIHS.

Related: Autonomous vehicles run into trouble in world’s largest AV market

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