HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — A Waymo vehicle was caught on video trying to go the wrong way onto an HOV lane during rush hour traffic in downtown Houston. The exclusive video obtained by Eyewitness News showed the autonomous vehicle blocking traffic.

Craig Funni captured the video at around 4:45 p.m. on Tuesday after getting stuck in the commuter cluster.

“Definitely not safe because nobody knew what it was going to do, that was the scary part, nobody knew what that car was going to do, if there was a driver in it, maybe they could say, ‘Hey, I’m doing this or I’m doing that, but it’s just sitting there,'” Funni said.

He said that after about five minutes, he was able to maneuver around the self-driving vehicle.

“Eventually, people started moving around, and then at one point I got stuck at the light where the car was like right at my driver’s side door, then I got a little concerned like, there’s nobody in it, what if it starts driving into my car. It didn’t, and then the light turned green, and I don’t know what happened after that. But it was pretty frustrating,” Funni said.

ABC13 also obtained new video showing a handful of Waymo vehicles stopped near railroad tracks in the Fifth Ward on Gregg Street.

Neighbors said it’s a daily occurrence, and that a person driving a regular car will often get blocked in by Waymo vehicles and won’t be able to back up or turn around if the train stalls.

“Ain’t nobody in the car, you blowing at it, I’m very frustrated because it’s just like – they are going to come here and do what they want to do,” said Kelvin Washington, who was blocked in by a Waymo.

ABC13 reached out to Waymo about the HOV incident, and released the following statement:

“One of our vehicles attempted to turn west onto the reversible HOV lane of St. Joseph Parkway while the reversible lane was running eastbound.

After the vehicle came to a stop, our Remote Assistance team helped the vehicle to back up and clear the intersection.

We are looking into this event further, and will make operational changes to help prevent this moving forward.”

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