Waymo Robotaxi Reportedly Transported Undetected Person Trapped in Trunk in Los Angeles

December 8, 2025

In Los Angeles, a Waymo autonomous taxi reportedly picked up an unauthorized passenger when a man was trapped inside the trunk after a previous rider left it open. The AI system failed to detect the unauthorized occupant before dispatch.

The rider discovered the man during the trip and alerted authorities who removed him. This incident underscores the importance of safe and secure AI practices in autonomous vehicles. For those interested in shaping responsible AI governance, consider joining HISPI Project Cerebellum TAIM to help map and measure such incidents as well as manage guardrails for AI.
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Matched TAIM controls

Suggested mapping from embedding similarity (not a formal assessment). Browse all TAIM controls

MEASURE 2.6 — similarity 0.689, rank 1. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MAP 1.6 — similarity 0.671, rank 2. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MAP 4.2 — similarity 0.659, rank 3. TAIM detail and related incidents →

Alleged deployer: waymo
Alleged developer: waymo
Alleged harmed parties: unnamed-waymo-passenger-trapped-in-trunk, waymo-passengers

Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/1337

Data source

Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).

When citing the database as a whole, please use:

McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.

Pre-print on arXiv · Database snapshots & citation guide

We use weekly snapshots of the AIID for stable reference. For the official suggested citation of a specific incident, use the “Cite this incident” link on each incident page.