Is Safety A Much Bigger Issue For Robotaxis Than We Assume?

The “robotaxi revolution” has been hyped for about a decade. Many see it as never coming. Many see it as just around the next corner. The fact of the matter is: robotaxis are already in operation. However, that’s still at a rather small scale. The “revolution” part would be when there are more robotaxis than human-driven taxis, or maybe even once robotaxis account for 10% or 20% of total taxis.

However, even with robotaxis in operation today, things will change a lot when/if they become the norm, or at least common. One potential issue that still hasn’t been adequately addressed for mass use is rider safety. However, I’m not referring to the driving ability of robotaxis and resulting passenger safety. Instead, this is referring to the potential for nefarious actors to do bad things to trapped passengers.

This is not a new concern, of course. But it’s not clear if current solutions are adequate for mass use.

We’ve all seen it in movies, even if we’ve never had to go through this ourselves — a “bad guy” (or zombie or alien or even non-bad guy who seems like a bad guy) is in front of someone’s car and looks threatening. The driver screams and responds by driving around or even through the threatening actor. Boom, out of there! This is not possible in a robotaxi.

This is not the first time we’ve discussed this matter, but some fresh reports of actual Waymo users brought it up again, and that made me think even further about how much this could be an issue if robotaxis were ubiquitous. Here’s one posted on X (hat tip to Jalopnik):

All fun and games, eh? Just slightly terrorizing a young lady in a driverless vehicle.

Jalopnik also referenced an article in the Washington Post in which the Post interviewed four Waymo passengers, three of them women, about dangerous situations they found themselves in while using driverless taxis (aka robotaxis). One of those women was Amina from the X post above. “Amina said in an interview this month that she felt ‘annoyed’ and ‘powerless’ because the car wouldn’t move while pedestrians — first one, then two — were blocking the robotaxi’s path. She called Waymo’s support line, and the operator said they had seen the situation through their cameras.” But Waymo couldn’t do anything about it on their own. When the Post reached out to Waymo, they provided the following recommendations for riders to follow through the app if such a thing happens to them:

We take these events very seriously and understand how upsetting they can be.

If a rider feels their personal security is threatened while riding, they can reach out to 911 via the Waymo One App, which will also send an urgent notification to Rider Support. Additionally, riders can speak with Rider Support at any time using the in-car screen button, and request 911 be called. Waymo has a close working relationship with emergency responders where we operate, and our team has trained more than 15,000 first responders around the U.S.

Riders can also change their destination or add stops at any time in the app, which would alter the Driver’s course. A ‘pull over’ option is also available to riders at any point during their trip.

So, you can call 911 indirectly through Waymo. That’s about it.

That may be enough for many incidents, but other more planned and coordinated efforts could too much for that to be adequate. If robotaxis are driving all over the place at all hours of the day and night, how hard would it be for kidnappers, robbers, or other bad actors to set up in one area with disguises on and adequate tools/weapons and then make a robotaxi stop for them, break into the car, and do whatever horrible things they’ve planned?

Perhaps this is an overreaction and it’s likely that Waymo and police could act quickly enough in such instances. Perhaps there are other safeguards I’m missing. However, generally speaking, it seems like the options for robotaxi passengers here are not as good as the options for a human driver. What do you think?