Chapter 1: What unique experiences does the host share about Waymos in San Francisco?
My colleague Katie Bindley lives in San Francisco. She's a tech reporter and therefore has taken a special joy in observing Waymos, the self-driving robot taxis that are all over the city.
I was lucky enough to have Waymos training kind of all around my apartment for a while. And there were a lot of nights when, yeah, I would be driving home or heading somewhere and it would just be me and like four Waymos out on the road.
I love how you said, I'm lucky enough to be in a neighborhood where Waybos are trained. Is that really like a stroke of luck?
Well, I mean, it was really entertaining. Like I remember one night I was driving home and it was like this extremely foggy, you know, kind of moody night. And I pulled up at a stoplight next to a Waymo. There were no passengers in it. And all the windows were down and they were blaring the song Creep. Do you guys remember that song? Like, so I creep, yeah. Yeah.
The car was just listening to TLC?
Yeah, having like a chill ride through the neighborhood. No, I do feel lucky because I think it's been fascinating to observe them, to observe how humans feel about them, how we interact with them.
Recently, though, Katie told me she observed a Waymo doing something that caught her by surprise. She was in a car with a few other people one night. They'd rolled up to a four-way stop at about the same time as another car, a Waymo.
And I would say, like, it was probably a tie. And typically, in those types of circumstances, if it's a tie, the Waymo would be very deferential and would let you go. Or it would wait to see if you were going to go. And in this case... You know, we both pull up and the Waymo was just like, my turn, I'm going. And all of us kind of gasped at the same time.
We're like, wow, that was like kind of an, that was kind of like an aggressive Waymo. And we started talking about how we'd all observed the Waymos, you know, being more assertive and more, you know, every man for himself, I guess. The experience got Katie thinking.
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Chapter 2: How have Waymos changed their behavior on the roads recently?
It's a strategy.
So Waymo is tweaking the cars to be more assertive. Like the company is changing Waymo's behavior?
They do regular software updates. So this is something that's been happening over time.
Chapter 3: What surprising incident did the host witness with a Waymo at a four-way stop?
I mean, he described it as, you know, just kind of necessary in order to scale them up in San Francisco. It's a busy city. You've got tons of cars on the road. When the Waymos are too passive, it becomes disruptive to the rest of traffic. So, you know, there's reasons to make them more confident.
So it's not like there are these, like, rogue Waymos just picking up the California rolling stock on their own? No. Okay. I don't think so, no. Waymo says its cars are safe. A company spokeswoman said Waymos have logged 100 million driverless miles in San Francisco and other major cities.
And Waymos reported that compared with human drivers, it's had 91% fewer crashes involving a serious injury or worse. Ludwig wouldn't comment on specific incidents of Waymo misbehavior. But he emphasized that while Waymos are designed to make common sense decisions, they're also designed to respect traffic laws. Still, Katie says, that doesn't always happen.
San Bruno police pulled over a Waymo car with no driver Friday night while conducting a DUI crackdown.
Last year, two California cops pulled over a Waymo.
Police say the car made an illegal U-turn right in front of them.
And it raised an interesting question. How do you ticket a car with no driver? Katie talked to one of the cops.
The funny thing is he said that he and his partner had just been talking about hearing about how Waymos were getting more assertive. And then he said they saw Paul the Yui and then they looked up and they saw the no U-turn sign. So they put their lights on and pulled over the Waymo and the windows rolled down.
And yes, there was no human in the front, but an operator did come on the speaker and profusely apologize. And they can't write them tickets yet. That is coming soon. So yeah, no tickets issued. It's kind of unfair, isn't it? I mean, you know, now that you mention it. Yeah, although I've talked myself out of a few tickets, so I guess I can't complain.
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Chapter 4: What do residents think about the assertiveness of Waymos in traffic?
Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow with a regular episode.