‘The Light Turns Green And The Waymos Won’t Move’: Woman Gets Behind 2 Waymos At Stoplight. 50 Minutes Later, They Haven’t Budged

A woman who got stuck behind two stationary Waymo robotaxis at a traffic light filmed herself sitting through ten green cycles before calling 911, while a line of cars stretched behind her, and the driverless vehicles ahead simply refused to move. 

Her 91-second TikTok recording of the standoff has racked up more than 4.3 million views and reopened a question several U.S. cities are about to confront in court: When a car without a driver breaks the rules, who exactly does the ticket get written to?

The video was posted on May 20, 2026, by Emily (@emilytatouille), a creator whose channel describes itself as “skits, hyperfixations, & rants.” Her caption was a seven-word distress signal: “Who can I yell at because what?”

Stuck Behind 2 Waymos: Ten Light Cycles And A 911 Phone Call

When the clip starts, Emily is already exasperated. “I just called 911 because I am stuck between two Waymos that are not moving, and I’ve been sitting here for 50 minutes,” she tells the camera. “We have gone through probably 10 light cycles, and the light turns green, and the Waymos don’t move.”

The 911 dispatcher’s reply gave her the line the comments section would seize on. “They said, ‘Oh yeah, we already know. We’re sending an officer. Someone already called about this,’” she says, then turns the question on the listener: “Is the officer gonna argue with a ghost? There’s no one in the car. There’s no one driving the car. I am completely stuck.”

The footage then captures one of the Waymos beginning to roll in the wrong direction. “The Waymo keeps backing up. It’s gonna hit this guy,” Emily says with panic in her voice. 

The reversing Waymo eventually opened a gap. A woman in the car behind Emily got out and physically directed her through it. 

“Thank you to the woman behind me who got out and directed me to squeeze between both Waymos. And thank you, Waymo, for not moving while I did that,” Emily says in the closing seconds. “I never thought I was gonna make it out of there, but I actually made it out unscathed.”

Waymo: A Driverless Fleet Of Three Thousand

Waymo, Alphabet’s robotaxi unit, has been the most expansive of the major U.S. autonomous-vehicle operators. As of February 2026, TechCrunch reported Waymo’s fleet at about 3,000 robotaxis, delivering more than 400,000 paid rides a week across six markets—Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles, Miami, Phoenix, and the San Francisco Bay Area—with launches in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Orlando rolling out in late February.

The expansion has come with a corresponding stream of viral footage of the cars freezing in intersections, driving onto rail crossings, and stopping in front of emergency vehicles.

In March 2026, a Waymo blocked an ambulance crew responding to a deadly mass shooting in Austin, Texas, in which three people died. Footage from the scene showed the driverless car stationary in the road as the ambulance approached; an Austin police officer eventually got in and drove the vehicle into a nearby garage. Waymo said its car had been on the way to pick up a passenger near the shooting.

A separate Waymo drove onto Phoenix light rail tracks in January 2026, prompting its passenger to flee on foot before an oncoming train. Another stopped between train tracks and a railroad crossing arm in Austin two months later. During a power outage in San Francisco in December 2025, the company’s cars stalled in groups across the city, and Waymo briefly suspended service.

The Regulatory Gap: Who Gets The Citation?

Emily’s question to the 911 dispatcher points to a legal hole that California has spent the last 18 months trying to fill.

Before Assembly Bill 1777, signed by Governor Gavin Newsom in October 2024, California police could pull a Waymo over for a moving violation but could not issue it a ticket; with no human driver, there was no licensed party to cite. AB 1777 closes that gap by letting officers issue a “notice of noncompliance” to the manufacturer, which then has 72 hours to report the incident to the state DMV, or 24 hours for serious cases. The DMV can use that record to revoke a company’s deployment permit.

That law, however, does not take effect until the summer of 2026, and her standoff happened in May, weeks before officers were given the new tool.

‘Everything I’ve Heard About Waymo’s Have Been Horrible’

The replies under Emily’s video are full of witnesses to similar problems in different cities. 

“I had to call the police on a Waymo the other day because the traffic lights were out, not even blinking, and a Waymo was sitting in the left turn lane not moving,” wrote Olivia Vescovo. “The dispatch I talked to just sighed heavily when I said Waymo.” 

SteelCityDawn described seeing officers roll a driver’s-side window down and address whoever was monitoring the car remotely, with the human at Waymo then taking control to move the vehicle. “It’s all very weird,” she wrote.

A lot of comments relentlessly employed the same pun: “You have waymo patience than me." "We have waymo problems than we used to."

Motor1 reached out to Emily via direct message and to Waymo via email for additional comment. We’ll be sure to update this if they respond.