Would you let a robotaxi chauffeur your kids around?
Some screenshots shared on Reddit show a survey emailed by Waymo to a user for test the idea of a new service called Waymo Teen, a subscription service for youngsters to hail one of its cars and send pickup and drop-off alerts to their parents.
Parents would use this service for sending or picking up their children to and from school, for extracurricular activities, or simply hanging out with friends, providing them with safe mobility that can be monitored.
Ride-hailing services such as Uber are already used by some better-off families for ferrying their children around. According to Uber’s terms of service, minors between the ages of 13 and 17 can use the service unaccompanied by an adult with their parents’ permission. However, concerns over lax background checking at Uber have made some parents think twice before allowing their children to use the service. Waymo, which until now didn’t allow unaccompanied under-17s in its vehicles, might have the answer: they would travel alone.
In my experience, while friends and family were relatively sanguine about getting into a self-driving vehicle, when asked about their children doing so, they usually were much less sure.
Now, Waymo, whose driverless cars are already a familiar sight on the streets of San Francisco and much of the Bay…
