Man Tries to Break Into Waymo Driverless Car With Rider Inside
The rider says the lack of a driver made him feel 'helpless' as he watched the man fiddle with the door handle, knock on the window, and take out what looked like a knife.
A Waymo rider in San Francisco experienced an attempted break-in on Sunday night when the driverless car stopped at a red light.
A man approached the vehicle and tried to open it, seemingly fiddling with the door handle, according to a video posted on Reddit. Unsuccessful, he knocks on the window to get the rider to open the door before brandishing what appears to be a knife, though a glare in the video obstructs the view of the object.
"I’m not sure it was a knife. Maybe it was a tool to break car windows," the rider says.
"The scariest part was that I felt a bit helpless without a driver that could have just floored the gas to get us out of the situation," the rider says. "Once the light turned green, the Waymo drove me home like usual."
The shocked rider called Waymo to notify them of the incident. The company's response was "very supportive" and included a check-in email the next morning and a call from a Waymo supervisor. They advised him to press an emergency button in the Waymo app next time, which would have triggered a 911 call, per Waymo's policy.