【Dear Utol (2025): Maniac Photographer Episode 26】

We're kinda getting used to self-driving cars eerily being tested in our streets by companies such as Google,Dear Utol (2025): Maniac Photographer Episode 26 Uber, Lyft and Apple.

But that didn't prevent people from Arlington, Virginia from literally freaking out when they spotted an unmarked Ford Transit without a human driver behind the wheel.

Just a week beforehand, Virginia had greenlighted autonomous driving tests on "light traffic conditions", and local university Virginia Tech has been trialling autonomous cars in the area.

However, when testing autonomous vehicles, tech companies usually deploy a human overseer to make sure the car doesn't go rogue and starts running over old ladies crossing the street.

This car, instead, seemed to have gone full HAL 9000:

But fear not, because NBC 4's transportation reporter Adam Tuss decided to investigate.

He tracked the car down, followed it around the city until he could pull up to it at a stop sign. When he approached, he noticed the driver's seat had two hands and two legs.

The car was being driven by a man disguised as a car seat. He woke up, put on his best car seat costume and chilled out in a driverless car as it drove through the Courthouse and Clarendon neighbourhoods in Arlington, Virginia.

Yup, you read it right. Two hands and two legs poking out of a car seat.

"There is somebody in the vehicle. There is somebody behind the seat," a super-excited Tuss said while filming the bizarre episode:

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What followed is certainly the most hilarious moment of this very strange story:

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“Brother, who are you? What are you doing? I’m with the news, dude,” Tuss tried to ask the driver, who was holding he wheel low, sunk into his own seat.

But the guy didn't comment and just sped off, reportedly running a red light.

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NBC News reached out to Virginia Tech's Transportation Institute which provided a somewhat satisfactory explanation for what happened (and no, it's not a YouTube prank).

“The driver’s seating area is configured to make the driver less visible within the vehicle, while still allowing him or her the ability to safely monitor and respond to surroundings,” a spokesperson for the institute said.

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