The company said in a statement: "We are proud to be a reliable means of transportation at every moment, big or small. We serve passengers from the first seconds of their lives for many years after." Self-driving taxis are gaining increasing popularity in the United States despite growing scrutiny. They are used on highways and main roads in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, and Phoenix. American media reported that a woman gave birth to her child alone in a self-driving car in San Francisco, before the vehicle automatically continued its journey to the hospital, without revealing the woman's identity. A spokesperson for Waymo, a subsidiary of Google's parent company Alphabet, said the mother was on her way to the University of California San Francisco Medical Center last Monday when she went into labor unexpectedly inside the autonomous taxi. He added that the company's passenger support team detected "unusual activity" in the vehicle, prompting them to contact the passenger and call emergency services to ensure her safety. The company did not disclose how the vehicle managed to detect that activity, only confirming that the vehicle continued to the hospital and arrived with the mother and child safely before emergency teams arrived. Jessi Berthold, a spokesperson for the medical center, confirmed that the mother and newborn had already arrived at the hospital, while the Mercury News reported that the woman was not available for interviews. Waymo stated that the vehicle was temporarily taken out of service for cleaning after the incident, confirming that such incidents are rare but not the first of their kind in its vehicles.
