Fact-Check: Can Waymo Lock You Inside and Drive You to a Police Station?
By Maya Lin-Takahashi
The rumor started with a classic piece of short-form video sleight-of-hand. A widely viewed clip showed several teenagers climbing across the back seats of a driverless vehicle, followed by an automated voice announcing the ride was ending, and a sudden shot of police cruisers surrounding the car on a city curb. Within hours, aggregators reframed the clip: "Waymo stopped and handed misbehaving teens to police." By the following morning, secondary posts claimed the car rerouted directly into a sally port at a police station.
The narrative tapped straight into algorithmic anxiety. People readily believed that parent company Alphabet had coded private autonomous arrest powers into its navigation algorithms. Comments framed the vehicle as an algorithmic truant officer roaming the streets of Phoenix and San Francisco.
The footage depicted an entirely mundane, manual process. The teens violated rider conduct rules, an automated operations hub flagged the disturbance, a remote specialist intervened over the cabin speaker, the car pulled over safely to the right shoulder, and local officers responded to a standard trespass call. At no point did the vehicle reroute to a station house, and at no point were the doors locked to trap the occupants inside.
Maya is a hardware enthusiast who tests and reviews smart home devices, smartphones, wearables, and audio gear. She focuses on practical consumer value and build quality.
