Sex in self-driving cars: Passengers are reportedly hooking up in San Francisco's driverless taxis

• Riders are reportedly using San Francisco's self-driving taxis, operated by Cruise, to hook up.
• A 2018 study predicted that more autonomous vehicles could mean more sex on the road.
• The cars have cameras and microphones for safety, and Cruise prohibits "inappropriate behavior."

With no one in the front seat driving, some people are using self-driving taxis for a little bit more than just transportation.

The San Francisco Standard spoke to four separate individuals in the city who said they have either fooled around or had sex in one of the robotaxis from autonomous vehicle company Cruise over the last few months.

Cruise and Waymo have been operating fully driverless vehicles in San Francisco since early 2022, and got the go-ahead last week from the city to further expand their services and offer fully driverless rides 24/7 going forward. Cruise operates about 300 vehicles at night and 100 during the day, the company revealed at a California Public Utilities Commission hearing, according to the Standard. Waymo has a fleet of 250 robotaxis in service, a spokesperson confirmed to Insider.

"It seems like I'm a trailblazer," one passenger told the Standard. The publication granted him and all others named in the piece anonymity, but referred to him by the alias Alex. "It's also fun to realize that this is like the first place you can do this in the country." 

Alex told the Standard that he's had sex in robotaxis three times. 

One of Alex's partners in robotaxi sex, whom the Standard called Megan, said that her encounter with Alex was her first time ever riding in an autonomous vehicle.

"Was it the most comfortable? Was it the most ideal? Probably not," Megan told the Standard. "But the fact that we were out and about in public, the whole taboo of it being kind of wrong made it more fun and exciting." 

A 2018 study by Scott Cohen and Debbie Hopkins in the Annals of Tourism Research journal predicted that passengers might use robotaxis for sex.

"Hotels-by the hour are likely to be replaced by connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs)," the researchers wrote. "This will have implications for urban tourism, as sex plays a central role in many tourism experiences. Such private CAVs may also be put to commercial use, as it is just a small leap to imagine Amsterdam's Red Light District 'on the move."

When a porn video of a couple having sex in a moving Tesla on Autopilot surfaced in 2019, Tesla CEO Elon Musk seemed unsurprised, tweeting "Turns out there's more ways to use Autopilot than we imagined. Shoulda seen it coming…"

Insider reported at the time — when access to self-driving cars wasn't nearly as accessible to the public as it is now — that most autonomous cars would likely have security or surveillance in place through cameras or other monitoring, though the researchers point out in the study that surveillance could be "rapidly overcome, disabled, or removed." In other words, people can get pretty creative in figuring out ways around these systems.

Both Cruise and Waymo do have cameras and microphones inside their self-driving vehicles as well as on the outside, which the companies say are used for safety and rider support. Cruise says on its website videos from its vehicles are used for customer support, safety reasons, vehicle maintenance, security, operations, or if legally required. Both companies say on their websites that microphones are only active during rider support calls. Cruise's community rules also specify that passengers are required to wear a seatbelt.

Waymo declined Insider's request for comment.

"When users sign up to use the Cruise platform, they agree to follow our Community Rules which explicitly condemn any illegal activity or inappropriate behavior while using our service," Cruise told Insider in a statement.

Since having sex in a vehicle within public view would certainly constitute "inappropriate behavior," it's safe to say you're definitely not allowed to have sex in a Cruise robotaxi. But if that isn't stopping everyone, the company may find itself tasked with enforcing that rule a bit more often than it would like.