“This is it. We’re dead. We’re going to die right here in the Waymo.”
This combined with another recent article from some insiders at Tesla saying, along the lines, “You couldn’t pay me to let one of these things drive me somewhere.”
And yet I still know people who are just so chuffed about “never having to drive again.”
EDIT: Comments have pointed out that this story is, at best, overblown and semi-fabricated otherwise. Take it with a massive grain of salt. But feel free to discuss self-driving, waymo, etc in the comments!
A 2nd robot car pulled it over.
Get the robot Air Force One ready.
“Air” force? For a land vehicle? Pffffft, get the M3 GTR (no turn signals for weight reduction)
This combined with another recent article from some insiders at Tesla saying, along the lines, “You couldn’t pay me to let one of these things drive me somewhere.”
Was said insider talking about Teslas or were they whinging about a competitor that makes better vehicles than they do?
Tesla
Found the article! https://www.reuters.com/investigations/why-teslas-ai-trainers-dont-trust-its-self-driving-tech-or-its-safety-stats-2026-05-28/
Seven of the former data labelers told Reuters they wouldn’t trust FSD to drive them. “We have all seen it fail,” one said. Another said he wouldn’t ride in a Tesla robotaxi “if you fucking paid me.” One veteran self-driving engineer, who reviewed Tesla crash data for years, called its safety claims “bullshit.”
It was probably about Teslas given the state of Tesla’s “self driving” feature.
Still, given everything I’ve heard about how Waymos react to novel situations, I’m not too keen on trusting my life to them either.
Yet. Trust your life to them… yet. All it takes is ALL vehicles to eventually be autonomous, and then you never have to worry about loss of life or injury. If all vehicles followed every rule to a “T,” there would be no issues.
When you look at all the edge cases, road rules are not 100% consistent. They rely on human judgement to manage the (rare) ambiguous situations, such as a misaligned road intersection. With ever vehicules following every rules to a T, there would still be issues.
I mean, if there are no humans on the road they won’t be dying there. Doesn’t seem like it would be very good for us, though, to no longer be allowed to travel.
There will always be idiot pedestrians and bicyclists, what about those?
In my limited experience they all suck. I was driving a new Ford with “driver assist” and it decided to nearly kill everyone in the immediate area while driving through a construction zone. The transition from my driving to the vehicle taking over felt similar to the time my power steering (instant horror) went out and the transition from vehicle misreading the situation to my somewhat panicked regaining control felt like performing a highly illegal driving manuever. I’m singling out Ford because that was the vehicle make, but I’m fairly certain the technology itself is undercooked. I’ll be sticking with my ancient vehicle as long as possible and maybe go buy something with a tape deck or 8-track next.
But they’re fine with being payed to do it to other people. Typical tech bro attitude.
What if we kissed while being kidnapped in the Waymo being chased by the police?
I was surprised these things were allowed on public streets without first being certified by some strict regulatory body.
I WAS surprised, since I used to suffer under the delusion that someone, somewhere was looking out for public safety, at least on some basic level. Like the FDA, USDA, OSHA, etc. But, these institutions were so easily gutted and pushed aside, and the traffic laws we do have aren’t nearly enough for regulating self-driving cars. We’ve always just allowed shit to happen as long as there are no existing laws to challenge it.
They kicked corporate money out of politics in Hawaii, that can’t happen fast enough in every other state. Imagine having common sense measures put before the people, like “should we allow self-driving cars on public streets before there are laws to regulate them?” and NOT having corporate money flow into the state to shift public opinion and buy off local politicians.
I work in transportation regulation. I understand your fear and frustration. What is happening with self driving cars is probably as stupid as you believe. However regulations are pretty reactive and in some ways good regulations should be. You can’t regulate what you don’t understand and you can’t understand what has never been done before.
The best approach is to start small and work directly with a regulator to create an initial trial and evolve the regulatory framework that ensures safety for the trial period. Then that framework can be used for future trials by other companies before being finessed into an official regulation. Then you have something which you know CAN be successfully implemented by companies AND does produce good safety outcomes.
Is that what’s happening? It probably was, initially. But as you said the public service is gutted and now corpos are having a wild west free run at this AI car thing. Good luck on the streets, we’re soon all gonna need it.
Like Rick Sanchez’ car
And yet I still know people who are just so chuffed about “never having to drive again.”
I mean, I think that part is 100% understandable. I get that many people in fact enjoy driving, but likewise, many people do not. For many a driving commute is the most anxiety inducing part of their day, and they’d be happy to be rid of it.
That’s the promise that self driving cars present. They just aren’t actually capable enough yet. From what I gather though, waymo is probably the farthest along of any of these companies. I don’t think I’d trust them for complicated Boston area driving though. To many narrow, winding roads complete with active road work, aggressive drivers, rotaries, etc…
Isn’t that what taxis and publec transit is for?
Yes, those are both valid solutions.
However, in some cities public transit isn’t very good, there aren’t enough lines to actually get you where you need to go consistently. Outside of cities, public transit is mostly non-existent, so you need something else. Taxis can work, but they’re also expensive and you have to rely on others, which can also be anxiety inducing. What if my taxi doesn’t show up, or shows up late? What if the taxi driver makes me feel unsafe? I expect some people would like to be more in control of the situation, just without having to actually drive.
Hey, these things may not apply to you, and that’s fine, I’m glad there are simpler solutions for most people. But having used public transit every day for many years, I can honestly say that while it is usually the cheapest and most efficient solution, I can still understand why people might want something else.
The solution is to tax the shit out of cars and funnel the money into public transport. Starting with the massive trucks.
Do that all you want, there’s not going to be enough money (nor would it be ecologically sound) to create a robust public transportation system in every small Nebraska town.
I’m not saying it’s a bad idea, it’s just that it’s only part of a solution.
What I hear is “not taxing gender affirming vehicles high enough”
You know what else solves that problem that isn’t a fascist wet dream, public transportation, like trains and buses.
Do you have a problem with cars in general? Because I really don’t see anything inherently worse about a car you don’t have to operate manually, that’s just a technical achievement.
I agree that whenever it’s feasible public transportation is a better option than individual vehicles, no argument there. But, it’s also not always feasible.
I don’t know how fascism factors in besides perhaps a tangential connection to Elon musk. I think this is really more of an ecological and economical issue than an ideological one.
Yeah, I enjoy driving and am fond of my car. But offer me the opportunity to spend my 90 mins commuting time sitting back and reading a book, and I’d probably take it.
Of course the tech is not ready and shouldn’t have been deployed in its current state. Government is letting big business use us all as crash test dummies.
I drive through Austin regularly and see Tesla and Waymo automated taxis all the time.
The Waymos are just about the best, most-predictable drivers on the road. The Teslas are like toddlers pretending they can drive by randomly spinning a steering wheel.
I’m not against self driving cars for the sake of it but because I understand technology comes at a cost. The idea of pumping out cameras everywhere and centralizing all the data is giving corpos and governments unimaginable power.
I really don’t like this crystal ball dystopia they’re building and self driving cars are excellent means for surveillance and data collection.
I’m against it on the basis that a car makes no sense without it’s original purpose to give an individual human greater self-mobility by being able to control where it goes without following a set course. If you’re not controlling it then you might as well be in a bus.
A self-driving car is ultimately as absurd as self-walking shoes.
”never having to drive again”
Y’know I can’t put my finger on it but something tells me that there’s an alternative to that without technofascist wet-dream robocars involved 🤔
If you live outside of a major city I don’t see an alternative.
Because the alternatives were deliberately dismantled.
You couldn’t pay me to get into a Waymo but you COULD probably convince me to pay a person to get me somewhere. What a novel concept!
Or trains, which I guess is still technically paying a person to get me somewhere in a really removed way.
Let’s go up and keep the train driver company!
Even if there was no other person involved. Making trains self driving makes way more sense and is way more achievable than hoping to automate chaotic road behavior
Self driving trains are far safer than any other option.
Trains are me and my neighbors paying ourselves to get everyone where they’re going in an extremely efficient way!
Waymo is everyone paying tech bros for an inefficient illusion of futurism with a whole lot of negative externalities that is drawing resources away from real progress in order to enrich the few.
Or trollies! Or subways! Or rickshaws!
I’m in process of designing a robot rickshaw. The big difference is that it’ll be pedalled by a shitty robot instead of a human. No I don’t want a regular ebike it’s a rickshaw we do this the hard way
Even busses are relatively okay.
Where‘s that from.
What form of public transport is this and how do I apply to be the driver?
And these are said to be the best ones of their kind…
I mean, keeping your passengers away from cops is a very good way to keep them alive in the USA.
Only if they’re not already focused on you. Once they are, trying to get away is likely to get you shot in the back when they fear for their lives because you’re running away or something.
They still have a wheel and pedals. If the car acts up, you are responsible to take over and maintain safety.
A self driving vehicle that you own, sure, but the point of a taxi is that you aren’t supposed to drive. A passenger doesn’t need a drivers license to enter a taxi, doesn’t need to think about how much they’ve had to drink. Also im not from the US but do these things even have steering wheels and pedals? I tried searching and found some articles where Wayne unveiled cars without them, but couldn’t see if they’re now in use commonly.
From videos I’ve seen, they do, but passengers go in the back seat. They use modified jaguar ipaces. Would not be easy or safe to get into the front and take control in an emergency…
They do not start if you are in the driver’s seat.
This isn’t someone’s personal vehicle, waymos are self-driving taxis with nobody in the driver’s seat. You are no more responsible for the behavior of the vehicle than you would be as a passenger in an ordinary taxi.
How is one supposed to reach the pedals from the back seat, where you’re supposed to be sitting in a waymo?
I’m no fan of all this half-baked self-driving bullshit, but there’s no need to mischaracterize the problem, especially when waymo is doing plenty on its own to discredit its abilities.
I googled it before posting, and the pages I saw showed a full regular steering wheel and said you could sit in the front seat. If that’s not correct, then Google’s page is wrong. I’ve never used one myself and don’t plan to any time in the near future.
The article links to another source, but the video they show doesn’t have the elements the passenger describes, like speeding through a construction zone or evading police. All you see in the video is the car moving less than 1 MPH while trying to merge through a clusterfuck of traffic. Is there a longer version of the video somewhere? Because so far, it sounds fishy. Especially with claims from Tesla workers, of all people, commenting on it.
There is a little bit of video in there of the car going quite fast, but the guy seems to mostly be filming the seat and the floor, so you only glimpse movement out of the window for a moment or two.
Ah bummer. Though I should mention the Tesla workers comment was just me paraphrasing a different article talking about Tesla’s auto-driving, not Waymo related stuff. I saw the two today, but saved one and not the other.
I’ve edited in a disclaimer to be skeptical. Thank you for catching that!
Ah, I was confused what the insider quote was about and wrote a comment wry some of that ambiguity in mind. Thanks for clearing it up
Sounds like a fucking chode. I bet he thinks moving out of the way for a cop car means he was being charged.
Fleeing from the police, speeding through construction zones. Sounds like Waymos are trained on human data.
Grand Theft Auto driving data.
LOL
It just dawned on me that no matter what, we have a wasted seat on self-driving taxis because we still put a wheel and pedals that are expected to go unused in the vehicle. I think this would help highlight just how unsafe this concept really is. With the wheel and pedals there, maybe it’s giving people more of an illusion of control or something, because I feel like having nothing there would make people a lot less comfortable, even though that’s the reality of the situation.
For now. Eventually, it’ll just be seats. Maybe some kind of maintenance control, like an outboard motor tiller in the center console, for a worker to operate in testing or repositioning. Or just a USB port to plug in an Xbox controller.
The idea is that you can do both manual and automated driving with one vehicle.
They’re retrofitting existing cars. Leaving the steering wheel and pedals means they don’t spend money removing them. It also means they can remove the lidar bolt ons, and resell them as normal used cars later.
For more than three passengers, they’ll probably retrofit a larger vehicle like a van or an suv.
I’d be more comfortable if the self-driving vehicle I was riding in had a way for me to take direct control in case of emergencies.
Not having a wheel or pedals to actually control the vehicle in case of emergency gets you situations like in the article.
Of course that would require either someone sitting in the driver’s seat, or making it easy to get into the driver’s seat.
With a wheel a shifter, and pedals, you can put the vehicle in neutral and push it out of the road if it dies or something. It doesn’t make sense to get rid of them.
Well, that was only a matter of time
There is no safety driver in these things right? But there are controls, yes? So why couldn’t one of the passengers have hopped into the driver seat and pressed the brake? I mean, I know it can be a challenge getting into the driver seat from another seat for even a fit person but i’d rather be trying to stop the thing than sitting watching in horror as the car goes crazy.
Also, trains have emergency stop buttons. Maybe we should have kill switches inside these things. Hit a button and the car pulls over and stops.
So why couldn’t one of the passengers have hopped into the driver seat and pressed the brake?
No reason at all. If you touch the wheel or pedals, it automatically disengages the automatic driving.
Maybe we should have kill switches inside these things.
There is a screen on the back of the front seats, with buttons to stop/pullover and contact support.
All the safety options were there, but instead of using any of them he took out his phone to record video of not a whole lot happening. Because that’s what you do when you really fear for your life, after all.
trains have emergency stop buttons
High-speed trains have “dead man switches,” which seems fucking obvious.
Would you want to be the person trying to get into the seat only to stop the vehicle and then get arrested by the cops for fleeing? That sounds like a recipe for getting shot in the US.
These things have cameras inside and out. And they’re branded. So you’re going to have a record of the thing going nuts and the cops are probably not going to shoot passengers in a waymo, that’s a PR nightmare.
and the cops are probably not going to shoot passengers in a waymo, that’s a PR nightmare.
For waymo, not the cops. That’s just a Tuesday for Statesian police.
Almost every single police shooting of a person still in their vehicle is a “PR nightmare”. If that’s all it took to stop this from happening it wouldn’t have happened again after the first time.
