The Teens Are Taking Waymos Now

Are the kids all right? They're in Waymos, at least, now that the self-driving car company has begun to allow Arizona teenagers in the Phoenix area to ride by themselves through special "teen" accounts. Eventually, the teen service, open to 14- to 17-year-olds, could come to all of the markets in the US where Waymo operates its robot taxis, the company says: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin, Atlanta, and soon, Miami and Washington, DC. In a country where so much of the transportation system depends on access to cars--and where many people, including those too young to have a drivers' license, are limited in what they can do and where they can go because of it--the move both promises and threatens to reorder young adult life. The concept of robot cars still scare plenty, but Waymo says its customers' enthusiasm for their self-driving cars has a lot to do with quelling fears.