A man who tried to steal a fully automated driving car was arrested by the autonomous car's defense system
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Waymo , an autonomous vehicle development company under the umbrella of Alphabet, the same group as Google, operates fully autonomous taxi businesses in several regions. Driverless fully autonomous taxis tend to raise safety concerns among users, and also attract thieves who try to get into the driver's seat and steal the car. There have been cases reported where fully autonomous taxi thieves have actually occurred, but they have been arrested thanks to the defense system of the autonomous vehicle.
Waymo explains how its driverless taxis handle car thefts after incident in downtown LA - CBS Los Angeles
https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/waymo-explains-how-its-driverless-taxis-handle-carjackings-after-incident-in-downtown-la/
Waymo stopped Los Angeles man from stealing a driverless car | Mashable
https://mashable.com/article/waymo-stopped-man-from-stealing-driverless-car
Waymo's self-driving taxi service launched the world's first commercial self-driving taxi service, 'Waymo One,' in Arizona in 2018, and then expanded to San Francisco and Los Angeles in 2024. In addition, it has announced that it will conduct tests in Tokyo from early 2025.
Finally, Waymo, the self-driving car company, will expand to Japan, partnering with Nihon Kotsu and GO to start testing in Tokyo from early 2025 - GIGAZINE
Although fully autonomous taxis without drivers are prone to safety concerns, data released by Waymo shows that after driving approximately 35.4 million km, autonomous vehicles had 84% fewer serious collisions and 73% fewer personal injury accidents than human drivers. Waymo also claims that its autonomous vehicles had far fewer accidents than vehicles driven by human drivers, even when compared to vehicles equipped with the latest advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) .
In addition, Waymo's self-driving cars also demonstrated how they deal with car theft. In early January 2025, a man entered a Waymo self-driving taxi traveling in Los Angeles from the passenger seat and sat in the driver's seat, attempting to hijack the car. However, he was unable to switch from self-driving to manual driving, and was reported by Waymo's security system and arrested.
A video released by CBS News shows a man in a Waymo car being dragged out of the driver's seat by police.
In response to the incident, Waymo explained, 'Waymo vehicles are designed to prevent unauthorized individuals from disengaging the autonomous system and manually operating the vehicle. If an unauthorized individual is in the driver's seat, our rider support team can ask the person to exit the vehicle and end the ride. If the person does not comply with instructions to exit the vehicle, rider support will coordinate with our emergency response team and work with law enforcement to respond.'
Additionally, Waymo has cameras that use machine learning models to monitor the interior of its cars, and can detect when a passenger has collapsed due to alcohol and is unable to exit the vehicle, according to a report from the San Francisco Chronicle . It can also detect violations such as whether passengers are smoking or not wearing seat belts.
As Waymo works to expand into other areas and provide rides on highways, the company maintains that 'in more than 5 million trips to date, there have only been a handful of incidents of unauthorized passengers or drivers taking off.'
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