TIFU by ordering a Waymo ride and getting in the front seat

Ok last fall. But still.. I figured I'd try out the new Waymo driverless car service from Google just for fun. I drove to a Walmart inside it's covered range in Phoenix. I parked, summoned my car and walked to a convenient spot where the Waymo would have no problems spotting me. I watched the car on the app as it approached and it drove right past. *sigh* off to a bad start. I noticed that it constantly avoided left turns. Instead of turning left, it made 3 right turns. I nicknamed the car Zoolander (after the movie with Ben Stiller about the male model who famously could not turn left on the runway).

The Waymo came in, I waved. It drove right past me and all the way back to where I parked. Well of course it doesn't respond to waves. D'oh. When I caught up with it, I tried to open the drivers door (locked). I opened the unlocked passenger door, unbuckled the seat belt, slid the seat back and hopped in. This is apparently a major breach of Waymo etiquette and this is where my FU begins. The car wouldn't do anything at all. A disembodied voice, highly stressed, came on the cars speakers and asked me to get into the back seat. Ok ok...geez. Why not just keep the front door locked? Or put a sign on the door or something.

In retrospect, I should have moved the seat fully forward and buckled the seatbelt again. Perhaps this was my undoing?

So I'm in the back seat but the car isn't doing anything. Again I get a phone call from the mothership telling me not to mess with the front of the vehicle. Ok ok I'm in the back seat already! I promise! The voice does some manual click click click and overrides whatever safety protocol I had violated. And off we go.

The ride was uneventful and actually pretty good. There were places where I would have slowed down or sped up. The car was overall a very cautious driver. Basically similar to having your grandma drive you somewhere. If your grandma couldn't turn left. Oh sure it would accelerate at random and weird times but it didn't speed or do anything dangerous. Until it suddenly just stopped and parked in the middle of the road blocking traffic.

Other cars were honking at me... like I could do something? The voice is back (female this time) and they are again telling me to stay out of the front seat! OK OK check I'm out I promise I'm out and I won't ever go back up to the holy land of the front of the car. But can we please get going? I'm causing road rage. And in Arizona that's no small thing - everybody has a gun and I'm pissing them all off.

More click click and finally we start moving again. So I'm sitting there filming and relaxing even and just enjoying the weird feeling of being driven around by a robot. Then the voice again saying something about being from Driver support I think. I interrupt and shout out "I'M NOT IN THE FRONT SEAT!!!". They say "ummm... cool. But we wanted to alert you to... a... situation. But no need to panic." Umm... I wasn't... but now I sort of am...

Zoolander who has been studiously avoiding left turns had come to a right turn that overloaded his little brain. The right most lane around the corner was blocked for road repairs. Zoolander only has to make a wide turn moving left one lane to get around a traffic cone but that's not happening. This set off some sort of alarm at Waymo HQ even more so than my attempt to sit in the front seat. I'm picturing something like when Homer Simpson pushes the wrong button at the nuclear plant.

After a fairly long wait and a LOT of horn honking the friendly folks at Waymo took remote control of the car and manually drove it around the cone (which I could have done by the way if I was allowed in the front seat!). And we were again on our way.

For my destination I picked a Costco because who doesn't like those $1.50 hot dogs? As we arrived, Zoolander was really feeling his oats. He hit the gas and raced through the parking lot skimming past shoppers pushing carts full of goodies. Zoolander drove like a horny teenager on his way to a hot date. Ok... minor exaggeration. But faster than I would have been driving in a parking lot. I got a few dirty stares when I got out of the car but all good. Nobody harmed.

As the car parked, I got a final call from Waymo. I thought we had left the whole "don't get in the front seat" thing behind but nope... another call reminding me not to get into the front seat. Like FUCK OFF about that!!! Oh and they told me Zoolander would remain in the area for about 20 min if I needed a return pick-up.

Umm... thanks. I think I'm good.

TL;DR called a Waymo and tried to get in the front seat.