The Teens Are Taking Waymos Now
Are the children All right? They are in Waymos, at least, now that the autonomous automotive company has started to allow teenagers of the Arizona of the Phoenix region to drive by themselves through special “adolescent” accounts.
Finally, the teenage service, open to 14 to 17 years, could come to all the markets of the United States where Waymo operates its taxi robots, said the company: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin, Atlanta, and soon, Miami and Washington, DC. In a country where a large part of the transport system depends on access to cars – and many people, including those who are too young to have a driving license, are limited in what they can do and where they can go because of this – the movement promises and threatens to reorganize the lives of young adults.
According to Waymo, adolescents and their parents like it. The concept of robot cars still scares a lot, but Waymo says that the enthusiasm of its customers for their autonomous cars has a lot to do with reprimand fears.
The company has been testing the new service in the Arizona metropolitan region for two years, starting with the analysis of the transport habits of a handful of families in the region in 2023. For the last stage, researchers, led by Waymo’s research product and customer research, Naomi Guthrie, interviewed adolescents who participated in a hundred family pilot. In interviews with these participants, Guthrie was struck “by the growing anxiety that we see in this generation”.
Drive of young people
Compared to what Guthrie remembered his adolescence, the children seemed constantly affected with their caregivers and expect almost surveillance, with applications based on location such as life360 allowing adults to keep an eye on their fate. But their movements were also limited by the schedules of these caregivers and if they could make rides. Adolescents interviewed had a “foreign danger”, a fear of the strong preference against interaction with foreigners. They were also nervous at the idea of taking the wheel.
“Teenagers are afraid of driving,” says Guthrie. According to federal data, national statistics are back, to a certain extent: almost 5% of all American drivers were 19 or less in 2007, the year when the iPhone was released, according to federal data; In 2023, it fell 3.7%.
The concerns of the caregivers, too, came in the comments and interviews of Waymo, known as Guthrie. They were stressed by the expectations of modern parenting, which include the game at least part -time to transport children to school, then activities after school. They were also concerned about the fact that their children are driving (as well as the friend less opposed to the risk of their children.) Statistics at the national level are also back: adolescent drivers from 16 to 19 are three times more likely to be in a fatal accident than drivers aged 20 and over.
Waymo thinks there is serious money – “said product market”, in the language of user experience experts like Guthrie – being the solution to these many anxieties.
Go solo
Adolescent adolescents’ accounts are linked to adults, and as adults, their accounts can be deactivated if they violate Waymo policies, which prohibit the consumption of drugs and alcohol in the car, weapons, large damage and touch of the steering wheel or brakes of the vehicle.
As with all those who roll on a waymo, teenagers leading to cars will have access to 24/7 customer support, including agents who can be contacted to press a button. Vehicle requests from adolescent customers will be automatically transported to the highest and best trained agents in the company. Waymo is also able to move parents in cyclists’ support calls.
