Should anyone squeeze their body out the window of a moving Waymo and stick their head up above the roof like they’re skateboarding on a robotic car while taking selfies and drinking an energy drink? No, of course not. Minors least of all. But is it cool? Well, doing a wheelie on a motorcycle at 120 miles-per-hour while smoking a cigarette is cool. It’s cool precisely because if you do it you’re being stupid and risking death. So with all that said, look at these cool teens: According to a witness named Rojia Shashavani, this happened June 19 on Olympic Blvd. in Santa Monica, CA, headed toward West Los Angeles. “What was shocking for me,” Shashavani told LA’s KTLA News, “was how young they were, especially the boy sitting at the very front who appeared to be maybe under ten—eight or nine years old.” If she’s correct about an eight-year-old, that’s horrifying. But Waymo claimed to the LA Times that only two of the three minors who were riding in the car sat on window ledges in this way, and only for a short time.
It also said the account used in the stunt was suspended. It probably goes without saying, but these teens appear to be breaking Waymo’s seatbelt rule. And if it’s true that they’re unsupervised, that’s against Waymo’s rule against minors riding without an accompanying adult (unless they’re in the lawless land of Phoenix, Arizona, where 14- 17-year-olds can ride alone).
