Travelling in a Self-Driving Car

Within my first day or two of arriving in San Francisco, I saw Cruise driverless cars on the road. The cars are allowed to drive during the day with a driver at the helm. After 10:30pm the cars can drive in autonomous mode without a driver. I forgot that driverless cars were allowed on the streets here. Later, a friend asked whether I wanted to take a ride in a driverless car.

On one evening, we took two rides in a self-driving car: one to Buena Vista Park, and the next to another neighbourhood. Across the journeys, we spent 15-20 minutes in the car. You can request a car from the Cruise app in the areas that are approved for your account (they are actively expanding into new neighbourhoods) and when a car is available it will pull up. You can unlock the car from the application. To start the car, you need to get in and buckle the seatbelts. I think there are sensors that detect when someone sits down because the car didn't ask us to start until both of our seatbelts were buckled. After tapping a button to start the car, with our seatbelts buckled, we were moving.

At first, being in the car felt jarring; being in a moving vehicle without a driver doing anything feels strange. With a friend next to me, getting over this first period of discomfort was easier than it otherwise would have been. Conversation about the mechanics behind self-driving cars, and observations about how it works, made me feel more comfortable in the environment. Within a few minutes, I felt at-ease, curious about how the car responds to various situations.

There was something exhilerating about watching the road as the car made decisions: seeing the car start when the traffic lights turned green and it was safe to start moving; watching as the car stops when a pedestrian is nearby; observing the paths that the car takes to get to its destination.

The car dropped us off exactly where we requested on the map. This was a bit strange because the location that we requested at Buena Vista Park was not at a park entryway. Thus, we were left on a side of the road without a pavement, and had to walk a bit to get to the park. Technically, the car was doing as we asked, but the experience felt less optimal than it could have been. I'm not sure what the solution to this problem is.

Our first journey was smooth. The second introduced an interesting situation. One person had stopped their car in the road while they let passengers out. The car wasn't sure what to do. It tried to move a bit but there wasn't an easy action it could take to proceed with the jurney as the car was blocking a lot of the lane. The car sent us a verbal notification to inform us that something wasn't as expected. As a passenger, it felt reassuring to hear that the car was figuring out what to do but wasn't ready to move yet. As soon as the car moved from the road, we were back on our way.

Before these experiences, self-driving cars were an idea about which I had heard and read. Now, I have hands-on experience in them. I feel excited about what these cars can do. I understand that Cruise is only actively operating in San Francisco, with plans to expand in other cities. It feels like a matter of time before self-driving cars become more common. Indeed, there are numerous difficult challenges to address -- making the cars as safe as possible, introducing appropriate regulation in terms of operating practices and safety, collecting data for new areas, coordinating cars as more get on the road, to name just a few -- but the technology feels promising.

Tagged in IndieWeb.