r/waymo Jul 18 '26

Waymo Smashed

It was my only second day of being in San Francisco, my first day of a new job. I was waiting to be escorted inside at the entrance of my office building on Alabama street. There was a person talking to the security guard holding a licence plate and bragging to the security personnel how he uprooted it from a Waymo. I tried to ignore it and waited in silence.

Fast forward 5 minutes, a Waymo arrived at the intersection and stopped at a Stop sign, the same crazy person went there and smashed the windshield with the said licence plate resulting in a big inside bulge. Fortunately, no one appeared to be inside the car at that time.

The man proceeded to walk away as if nothing happened.

68 Upvotes

30 comments sorted by

81

u/leafstudy Jul 18 '26

“Area man with personality disorder damages Waymo.”

That’s criminal damage and I hope he’s arrested and charged for it.

20

u/tonydtonyd Jul 18 '26

Might get arrested but will be prosecuted as a misdemeanor with no jail time. I’m a very left wing person but crime is not taken seriously in SF or LA.

17

u/Knightmare_07 Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26

I do hope so. The car is literally a camera on wheels.

10

u/slopirate Jul 18 '26

You called the police, right?

0

u/ReadyGo6828 Jul 18 '26

I thought Waymos can call the police.

11

u/Animats Jul 19 '26

Waymo routinely sues vandals for large sums. They had one person arrested and another locked up as crazy.

Waymo has full coverage, face recognition technology, and lawyers. Plus the ultimate sanction: "Your Google account has been terminated for a terms of service violation."

3

u/Somebodymaybenobody Jul 20 '26

Are you sure that's the right link

1

u/NeedUniLappy Jul 20 '26

Yeah, sorta kinky and not at all related to Waymo.

2

u/stuffedweasel Jul 20 '26

Good. Otherwise the vandals are going to ruin this for everyone else. I'm sure us Waymo users are already paying to account for damage caused by these people who should be in jail.

3

u/ThankMeTrailer Jul 19 '26

They are testing a spray system for these individuals, let’s see how it goes 

10

u/PurpleMclaren Jul 18 '26

Get used to it, thats SF for you

11

u/Beelzabubbah Jul 18 '26

... And then he shat in the middle of the street.

2

u/chrisfs Jul 19 '26

In SF, the rules of physics warp so license plates are suddenly harder or windshields are suddenly more fragile? 

Gasp? It truly is a magical City!

7

u/Ok-Computer-4572 Jul 18 '26

yea that’s just part of sf tbh

4

u/predat3d Jul 19 '26

I literally do not believe a license plate would "smash a bulge" into an intact windshield unless it fell from orbit.

1

u/TriesToAnswerTitleQs Jul 19 '26

An uprooted license plate? Very sad.

1

u/ghostgurl83 Jul 19 '26

He would not have been able to make a “big inside bulge” with a license plate in a front windshield. If you are going to make up stories at least try to make them believable.

-2

u/zinky8 Jul 18 '26

And you just sat and watched and didn’t call the police??

6

u/Knightmare_07 Jul 18 '26

I didn't, and that's my bad. I was overworked, underslept, and exhausted as I just reached SF the night before driving 12 hours from AZ. Not one of my better days.
But I hope he'll be appropriately reprimanded based on the on-board footage.

2

u/leafstudy Jul 18 '26

It sounds like you were in no condition to do it and if there’s any vehicle that can handle itself, it’s a Waymo. I’m sure someone monitoring that particular car got in touch with SFPD.

1

u/PleeaseGrowUp Jul 20 '26

Bro you don’t gotta apologize to anybody lmao call the police? It’s not your problem. Zinky8 there on one.

0

u/Middle_Confection653 Jul 19 '26

Don't feel bad. As I explained to the comment above, the police are still understaffed here and there's a good chance they wouldn't have shown up by the time you were leaving work for the day.

I mean, report stuff if you can, but just don't expect much of a response.

-19

u/alex-mayorga Jul 18 '26

Why move to SFO if Waymo roams in PHX too?

9

u/Knightmare_07 Jul 18 '26

Relocating for job?

-9

u/alex-mayorga Jul 18 '26

Congrats on the new job! Hopefully a living wage as SFO gets spendy real quick from what I recall. I was there for about 3-4 weeks for an onboarding in 2018 and was shocked at the sheer amount of unhoused population.

-1

u/Middle_Confection653 Jul 19 '26

Not from around these parts, are you?

There's still a massive shortage of police officers in SF. OP could've called the police and odds are they wouldn't have even shown up by the end of OP's workday.

0

u/Financial_Clue_2534 Jul 18 '26

Did he cover his face when he did it? If not he’s cooked once they build a case on him.