NY Times – The Robot Cars Have Come for the Kids

Because families have complicated schedules.

See original article by Corina Knoll at the NY Times

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A light drizzle had begun in South Los Angeles when the sound of a school bell unleashed a stream of students onto the sidewalk. Clad in gray skirts and purple polo shirts, the uniform at the all-girls public school, students climbed into school buses or scanned the scrum of cars hopefully for a parent arriving on time in the November rain.

Alexis Munoz — a 13-year-old with wavy hair and a smile threaded with braces — ambled away from the scene and up to a busy street. A white Jaguar sport utility vehicle came into view and pulled over, its spinning cameras and sensors hinting at an empty driver’s seat.

The robot car had come to take her home.

“There’s no one in there, so I don’t have to worry about being awkward,” said Alexis, a shy seventh-grader, before climbing in with her backpack.

When Waymo’s robotaxis arrived in Los Angeles in 2024, they seemed a futuristic gimmick that many believed would flounder in a city whose identity was built on cars — the human-behind-the-wheel kind — where drivers have little patience for one another, let alone those who do not exist.

Still, the autonomous cars drew fans. And a subset of users recognized that taxis devoid of strangers could offer an even more revolutionary service: chauffeuring teens and tweens in place of their harried parents.

It is a life hack taking root in the five markets where Waymo’s service is available to the public, but there is something profound about the possibilities in Los Angeles, where urban sprawl, soul-crushing traffic and a cumbersome public transit system are the great afflictions of working parents.

Here, it is not unusual for families to have multiple children attending different schools far from home. School buses, if you are deemed eligible, are limited to dropping off and picking up children at locations and times that are often unhelpful. The city bus, if there is somehow a direct route to school, comes with its own set of risks that can make parents uneasy.

The affluent turn to the nanny, while others seek the unicorn: a reliable, affordable caregiver available solely to perform drop-offs and pickups. But most tackle these family logistics on their own. Add soccer practice and music lessons and doctors’ appointments, and so begins a tormented dance of the privileged, to-ing and fro-ing through rush hour as any zest for life disintegrates.

Which brings us to robots handling our precious cargo, a notion rooted in science fiction that is, astonishingly, now happening for kids like Alexis.

“You have these very limited resources, and you just have to do what you have to do,” said her mother, Veronica Rivera.

Ms. Rivera, a psychiatric social worker, is stuck at work until 6 p.m. most days, while her husband, who installs and repairs glass, comes home even later.

The couple struggles to coordinate their jobs and their three children. They tried Uber, and Lyft, but found that those drivers tended to cancel after discovering their riders were minors. They turned to HopSkipDrive, a service geared toward students, but the drivers had to be scheduled in advance, and would leave if children were late.

Then, a few months ago, Ms. Rivera and Alexis did a test run with Waymo.

“It was the only option where I was like, ‘Oh my God, she can order a car, nobody’s in there, she can unlock it with her phone,’” Ms. Rivera, 42, said. “I know she’s going to be safe and she’s going to get home.”

Those already alarmed by the idea of self-driving cars will likely be appalled by parents who would willingly use them to cart their children around. Skeptics tally a growing list of mishaps. In November, as police conducted an arrest in downtown Los Angeles, a Waymo car was spotted almost jauntily driving through the intersection, seemingly oblivious to the row of police cars and a man lying on the street.

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In Austin and Atlanta, Waymo cars have been seen time and again ignoring the flashing lights and stop signs of school buses, prompting the company to announce that it would issue a voluntary software recall to address the problem.

And there was the death of Kit Kat, the beloved neighborhood tabby mowed over by a Waymo car in San Francisco, a city where autonomous cars frequently shuttle children to school.

But Waymo enthusiasts point out that humans have caused countless catastrophes on the roads, and most are not considered newsworthy. Many also argue that robotaxis, which can be connected to a live support agent, are safer than drivers who may be distracted, tired or slow to react.

“I mean, there’s no way I can step on a brake as fast as a computer can,” said Jason Shim, a lawyer whose 17-year-old daughter, Elle, often orders a Waymo car to get from her school in the Hancock Park neighborhood to a ballet class in Santa Monica. (One of Elle’s classmates commutes with her mother to work in the morning, then hops in a robotaxi to travel the next three miles to school.)

For most parents that turn to Waymo, the absence of a driver is its shining feature. The robotaxi will not be discriminatory, inebriated, inappropriate or predatory.

In Southern California, Waymo — owned by Alphabet, the parent company of Google — confines itself to a territory of about 120 square miles, a swath that stretches from downtown Los Angeles to Inglewood to Santa Monica. The omnipresent fleet has grown to roughly 700 cars, with an expectation that new models will be added this year.

“It feels normal,” said Anastasia Davitaia, 16, a junior at Fairfax High School who uses Waymo cars to get to her volunteer job, preparing meals for the needy in Hollywood. “When they first came out, no one was really talking about it that much. Like, self-driving cars? I thought it would be more of a conversation, but it wasn’t.”

Schools seem to have adapted, paying little mind to the autonomous vehicles approaching the premises around the first or last bell. That is, unless one attempts to enter the already dreadful pickup and drop-off lines. Robo code can apparently become perplexed by a makeshift boundary of cones and the frantic waving of an assistant principal directing traffic. Savvy riders know to be dropped off nearby to avoid school-zone confusion.

There is, however, a snag in the whole operation — one unknown to most Waymo users. California law prohibits the transportation of those under 18 years of age without an adult in an autonomous vehicle.

Waymo has endorsed the robotaxi and adolescent pairing, launching a program over the summer in the Phoenix metro area for those aged 14-17. According to a Waymo spokeswoman, the company may seek to add accounts for teenagers in California as the state’s rules evolve.

For now, in Los Angeles, Waymo as child chauffeur is primarily a middle- and upper-class practice, although robotaxis have been spotted ferrying young passengers from all corners of its domain. Parents say the cost is comparable to that for other rideshare apps, cheaper than hiring a caregiver and worth it for the extra set of wheels. Their children say the highlights are access to independence and social outings.

There are, of course, concerns about what exactly the kids are doing while alone in the cars.

“We listen to music and just, like, chill,” explained Joshua Levy, 14, on a recent Tuesday outside Beverly Hills High School. He was preparing to order his own Waymo car, a reprieve from his usual 40-minute walk home.

“If you try to do anything, it’s like, they’ll just catch you,” added his friend Luca Mchedlishvili, also 14, referring to the car’s internal cameras, which can spot any high jinks, say, if more than four people try to wedge themselves inside.

As the two freshmen lingered on the sidewalk along with a straggle of other teens, several Waymo cars pulled up to the curb to pick up students. They were barely noticed.

Corina Knoll is a Times correspondent focusing on feature stories.

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See original article by Corina Knoll at the NY Times