Two Waymo teen passengers learned the hard way this week that a driverless car is never truly unsupervised. During what they likely thought was a private joyride around San Mateo, California, a remotely monitoring Waymo employee quietly turned the tables on them, setting up a police response that ended their afternoon of mischief.

An Afternoon of Trouble

The incident unfolded on Monday afternoon when two 15-year-olds, out on summer break, hopped into a driverless autonomous Waymo taxi. What started as an ordinary ride quickly went off the rails.

According to authorities, the teens drank alcohol inside the vehicle and used a toy gun to shoot Orbeez beads at other cars on the road. To them, it may have felt like harmless summer fun. But someone was watching every move.

The Clever Trick

Unknown to the teenagers, a Waymo employee was monitoring the car remotely and quickly recognized that something was wrong. Rather than confront the passengers directly, the employee devised a clever ruse.

The teens were told that the Waymo was experiencing mechanical problems and needed to pull over. It seemed like a routine technical hiccup. In reality, it was a carefully orchestrated stop.

Behind the scenes, the same employee had already contacted the San Mateo Police Department, reporting that a gun appeared to be firing from inside the vehicle.

A High-Risk Police Stop

The report understandably prompted a serious response. San Mateo Police Department spokesperson Jeanine Luna explained that the monitoring employee had seen what looked like a firearm in the car, described it as black in color, and believed at some point that the passengers were actually firing it.

The Waymo car came to a stop in a shopping center parking lot near El Camino Real and Highway 92, where five police officers were already waiting. What followed was treated as a potentially dangerous situation.

Luna described the encounter as a high-risk traffic stop. She noted that Waymo disabled the vehicle in a location where officers could set up safely. Police then removed the teens from the car and searched the vehicle, ultimately discovering that the “firearm” was nothing more than an Orbeez toy gun.

Consequences for the Teens

Both 15-year-old passengers were detained by police before being released to their parents. But the matter did not end there. Authorities forwarded the case to the district attorney’s office to review for possible charges, which could include underage drinking and engaging in threatening behavior.

The police department also seized the moment to send a pointed message to families, writing, “Parents do you know where your teens are? Waymo does!”

Why It Wasn’t Just Harmless Fun

Luna used the incident to highlight a serious safety concern. What teenagers might view as innocent entertainment, she explained, can carry very real consequences.

The core problem lies in how convincing these toys can appear. According to Luna, people are increasingly taking toy guns, water guns, and similar items and painting them black to resemble genuine firearms. To an untrained eye, she warned, such a toy can easily be mistaken for the real thing, and that misperception is exactly what makes the behavior dangerous.

In her words, the activity stays harmless right up until the moment someone feels genuinely threatened by it, at which point the situation can escalate quickly.

Waymo Stays Silent

As for the company at the center of the story, Waymo did not respond to KRON4’s request for comment on the incident, leaving its remote monitoring team’s quick thinking to speak for itself.

The Bigger Picture

The episode offers a revealing glimpse into how autonomous vehicles are monitored and how quickly that oversight can translate into real-world intervention. For the two teens involved, a lighthearted prank turned into a high-risk police stop and a possible referral to prosecutors.

More broadly, the incident serves as a reminder that driverless does not mean unwatched. As autonomous ride services become more common, passengers may need to rethink any assumption that being alone in the vehicle means no one is paying attention, because as these teens discovered, Waymo really is always watching.