A Waymo autonomous vehicle in San Mateo, California, did what no human driver was present to do: it reported its own passengers to police after they allegedly drank alcohol and fired a toy gun from the back seat on a Monday afternoon.
San Mateo police detained two 15-year-olds following a high-risk traffic stop near 20th Avenue and El Camino Real after a Waymo representative called officers around 2:10 p.m. to report the teens' behavior inside the driverless vehicle, the Daily Mail reported.
The incident is equal parts absurd and instructive. Two minors apparently figured a self-driving car was the perfect getaway, no adult behind the wheel, no one to ask questions. They were wrong. The car itself, equipped with internal cameras and microphones, effectively turned them in.
San Mateo Police Department spokesperson Jeanine Luna told ABC7 that the Waymo representative described two passengers shooting from the vehicle and appearing intoxicated.
"Around 2.10pm we got a call from a Waymo rep saying there were two people in their vehicle, and they saw them shooting out of the vehicle."
What happened next reads like a scene from a movie nobody asked for. Waymo staff remotely directed the vehicle to stop and told the passengers it was experiencing "car troubles", a cover story to keep the teens in place while officers converged on the location. Police arrived with stun guns drawn and a K9 unit in tow, treating the situation as a high-risk traffic stop.
The reason for that level of force was straightforward: officers responding to a report of someone shooting from a vehicle had no way to know, in real time, that the weapon was a toy.
When police reached the car, the two 15-year-olds cooperated. Officers recovered a toy gun that had been painted over, making it look more realistic, along with Powerade bottles filled with Orbeez gel pellets, which the teens had apparently been firing at passersby or out of the vehicle as it moved through town.
The San Mateo Police Department issued a public statement that mixed dry wit with a serious warning. Officers described the teens as "shooting Orbeez as they sipped on afternoon libations while being chauffeured around town."
But the department made clear the stunt carried real risk.
"While there was some ingenuity to this scheme, toy guns, water guns, and BB guns all pose real dangers, especially to an untrained eye. The simple handling of them can cause fear in passerby's or to those who don't get a good look. Shooting projectiles at speed can cause real damage."
That warning is not hypothetical. A painted-over toy gun, brandished from a moving vehicle, can trigger a lethal response from law enforcement or armed bystanders. The teens are fortunate that Waymo's representative gave police advance information about the situation before officers approached.
The department also noted the underage drinking angle bluntly: "And lest not forget the underage drinking. All bad ideas today for these two."
Then came the backhanded compliment. Police acknowledged that at least the teens had the sense not to get behind a wheel themselves: "Well, the Waymo might have been the smartest idea yet, because driving impaired would've made this so much worse."
The San Mateo County District Attorney's Office is weighing whether to charge the two teens, including for underage alcohol consumption. No charges had been confirmed at the time of publication, and it remains unclear whether the teens were formally arrested or simply detained and released to parents or guardians.
Several questions remain unanswered. It is not clear whether Waymo's internal monitoring systems automatically flagged the behavior or whether staff happened to observe it through the vehicle's cameras and microphones. The company states on its support page that its in-vehicle cameras "help keep the vehicles clean and recover lost items" and that Waymo "does not use facial recognition or biometric technology to identify passengers." Whether footage from the ride has been turned over to police is unknown.
It is also unclear what specific alcohol, if any, was recovered from the vehicle, or whether the "intoxicated" description came solely from the Waymo representative's remote observation of the teens' behavior.
The San Mateo County District Attorney's Office now faces a decision about accountability for two minors. The same office has drawn scrutiny in other high-profile cases. In a separate matter, a California judge dismissed attempted murder charges against a radiologist who allegedly drove his Tesla off a 300-foot cliff with his wife and two young children in January 2023. That dismissal came after positive reports from a court-ordered mental health diversion program. San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said the defendant "got the break of a lifetime."
Whether the teens in the Waymo incident face meaningful consequences, or get their own break, will say something about how seriously San Mateo County treats reckless behavior by minors who endangered themselves and the public.
This incident highlights a tension that will only grow as autonomous vehicles become more common. Waymo's cameras and microphones gave the company the ability to monitor and report passenger conduct in real time, a capability no traditional taxi or rideshare driver possesses with the same consistency. The vehicle effectively became both the ride and the witness.
For parents, the lesson is plain. A driverless car is not an unsupervised playground. The technology that lets a vehicle navigate traffic without a human also lets a corporation watch, record, and report what happens inside. Two teenagers learned that the hard way when their afternoon joyride ended with stun guns, a K9, and a call to the district attorney.
For law enforcement, the episode underscores a real danger. A painted-over toy gun fired from a moving car looks, to anyone on the street, like the real thing. The margin between a prank and a tragedy was razor-thin.
And for the public, the question is simple: if a car with no driver can call the cops on two teenagers, what else can it report, and to whom?
The teens wanted a ride with no adult supervision. They got one with something worse: a machine that never looks away and never stays quiet.
