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Thursday, Oct. 1, 2026

No Wheel Needed: A Blind Rider Took the World's First Fully Driverless Trip

Did you know the world's first fully driverless ride on public roads was taken by a passenger who could not see the road at all?

Harper Quinn, Live desk · Sept. 17, 2026 · 3-4 min

Waymo Firefly reference vehicle (no steering wheel or pedals).
Waymo Firefly reference vehicle (no steering wheel or pedals). Photo: Jonathan Deamer / Wikimedia Commons

AUSTIN - Did you know the world's first fully driverless ride on public roads was taken by a passenger who could not see the road at all?

On Oct. 20, 2015, Steve Mahan, who is legally blind, rode alone through an ordinary Austin neighborhood in Google's Firefly prototype. The two-seat pod had no steering wheel and no pedals. There was no test driver in the cabin and no police escort on the street. Sensors and software ran the whole trip, Waymo (then Google's self-driving car project) has said in its own history of the ride.

Waymo Firefly reference vehicle (no steering wheel or pedals).
Waymo Firefly reference vehicle (no steering wheel or pedals). Photo: Jonathan Deamer / Wikimedia Commons

Harper Quinn, Live desk. Harper Quinn covers breaking driverless news for Driverless News.

The wire

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