Florida Injury Lawyer Blawg
A woman in Los Angeles was surprised when she and her daughter ordered a Waymo driverless taxi in the Westlake District and found a man hiding in the backseat.
The video, which has gone viral online with millions of views, shows the woman immediately questioning the man who claims that “the people” put him in the trunk.
Skeptical viewers questioned why the vehicles’ many cameras did not flag the man hiding inside the vehicle.
“Literally saw a video where they squeezed an extra person and the Waymo said they had cameras and it wouldn’t move until they go out, and so how is this overlooked?” one user questioned.
“This needs to go viral for women to be safe,” one user said, gaining thousands of likes for their comment. “This scared me and I have never taken a Waymo.”
“What’s sad is that a lot of women opt for Waymo over Lyft & Uber for safety reasons,” another person said.
Police allegedly detained the man and are now investigating the troubling incident.
Waymo said in a statement that it is committed to keeping riders safe and called the incident “unacceptable,” according to reporting from CBS News. The AI transportation company added that there are systems in place to prevent unauthorized individuals from entering their vehicles and that they are “actively improving” these procedures.
Additional details, including how the man entered the vehicle or if he was a passenger from an earlier trip was not immediately available. Police have not released information regarding any potential criminal charges.
Riders are encouraged to check their vehicles before beginning a trip.
Real Concerns for Safety
As a personal injury law firm in one of the fastest-growing cities in the U.S., according to U.S. Census Bureau data, Leesfield & Partners in Miami knows just how helpful new modes of transport can be. From e-bikes to driverless cars, it has never been easier to get around, but that does not mean these modes of transport are always safe.
The firm’s Founder and Managing Partner Ira Leesfield has regularly spoken out about e-bikes and now more and more headlines have sprouted, raising very real concerns for safety concerning driverless taxis and other rideshare programs.
Earlier this year, a driverless taxi made headlines for making an illegal U-turn in front of police officers. Fortunately, there were few other drivers on the road and no passengers inside, but mistakes like this can still lead to serious crashes. This month, two of the vehicles collided on a dead-end street in San Francisco, trapping a third in the resulting pileup.
Currently, Waymo services are available in cities like Phoenix, San Francisco’s Bay Area, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Austin. The company is slated to begin servicing other popular cities across the U.S., including Washington, D.C., Dallas and Miami, where the vehicles have already been spotted undergoing safety testing.
Their convenience is clear, however, this incident raises serious concerns regarding passenger safety. As one commenter said below the viral video, situations like this are why “a lot of women opt for Waymo over Lyft & Uber” services. In a bid to qualm such concerns, Uber announced plans to launch a new pilot program that would allow female drivers to select female passengers and vice versa, Leesfield & Partners’ blog previously reported.
Uber’s “Women Preferences” feature is note a new one. Lyft, another ride-hailing platform, launched a similar feature in 2023. Lyft’s feature matches women and nonbinary drivers with women and nonbinary riders. It is currently available throughout the United States. In its 2024 Community Safety Report, which was published on July 11, 2024, Lyft officials said there were 23 fatal physical assaults and 2,651 “instances of the five most serious categories of sexual assault.” Lyft separated sexual assault in 21 categories with the help of RALIANCE, a national sexual violence prevention organization. The “five most serious categories” as mentioned in the report included: Non-Consensual Sexual Penetration; Attempted Non-Consensual Sexual Penetration; Non-Consensual Kissing of a Sexual Body Part; Non-Consensual Touching of a Sexual Body Part; and Non-Consensual Kissing of a Non-Sexual Body Part. The sexual assault data released in 2024 shows a 21% decrease in incident frequency rate from the company’s previous report.
Leesfield & Partners
Leesfield & Partners is a personal injury law firm that has represented countless victims of assaults, car crashes, and corporate negligence over nearly five decades. Our skilled trial attorneys have witnessed countless instances where the very systems and authorities entrusted with protecting our clients’ safety and well-being have failed them.
In 49 years of personal injury practice, our attorneys have routinely represented victims and survivors of sexual assault with the compassion and knowledge of the law necessary to secure the best possible outcome in every case.
Our firm has achieved numerous record and landmark settlements and verdicts across the state. Through The Leesfield Family Foundation, women’s and children’s initiatives that deliver vital services to victims and survivors of sexual violence have been regularly supported.
Ongoing Cases of Violence
In an ongoing case being handled by Partner Justin B. Shapiro and Evan Robinson, a Trial Attorney at the firm, a young girl has been left with psychological and emotional scars after she was sexually assaulted at a South Florida gym.
The man who assaulted her was a member at the facility with a known history of violent and erratic behavior. Still, the gym did nothing to limit the man’s access to the property, leaving our client and other members vulnerable to harm.
In another ongoing case led by Bernardo Pimentel II, a Leesfield & Partners Trial Attorney, a woman’s life has been upturned after learning that she and various other cruise passengers were filmed in their private cabin bathrooms by a crew member who planted hidden cameras.
That crewmember was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for creating child sex abuse material as many of the passengers who were filmed were children.
In a separate case being handled by Mr. Shapiro and Mr. Pimentel, a woman was held at gunpoint in her luxury apartment complex by a man who entered the building, unencumbered by security. The man had committed at least one other crime in the building that day before encountering our client who he forced back into her apartment where he terrorized our female client, her fiancé and a friend of the couple who was at the apartment that day. The three were held at gunpoint and forced to wire money to the gunman who pistol-whipped one of the men before taking our three clients downstairs where they were able to attract enough attention to scare off the gunman.
That case is ongoing.
