Two 15-year-old boys thought a driverless car was the perfect accomplice. They were wrong.
In San Mateo, California, they got into a Waymo, a self-driving vehicle service that transports passengers without a human driver, with a bottle of liquor and a camouflaged Orbeez launcher, and started shooting gel beads through the window while the car drove them around the city. The problem is that this Waymo isn’t as dumb as it looks: it has staff monitoring the cabin in real time, and when they saw a dark object that looked dangerous, they didn’t hesitate. They stopped the vehicle remotely, diverted it to a nearby parking lot, and called the police directly.
The officers arrived thinking that a firearm was being fired from a moving car. Instead, they found two teenagers with a black-painted gel blaster and bottles of orange gel beads. Police spokesperson Jeanine Luna clarified something important: they were never trapped, could have gotten out whenever they wanted. It simply didn’t occur to them.
In the end, there were no arrests: they were returned to their parents. But it left an uncomfortable lesson for any future mischievous passenger: the car without a steering wheel also has eyes, and this time it decided to use them.