Seeking solitude and safety, riders flock to robotaxis driven by computers

USA Today

17-05-2025

Seeking solitude and safety, riders flock to robotaxis driven by computers
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Self-driving taxis coming to Atlanta
Lyft is partnering with May Mobility to bring a fleet of self-driving Toyota minivans to Atlanta starting this summer, according to Lyft.
Fox - 5 Atlanta
One constant among the women USA TODAY spoke with who routinely ride in Waymos is the notion of safety and the lack of real or potential harassment.
Meanwhile, other riders seek out driverless taxis because they believe computers are better drivers than human beings.
However, the rollout of driverless taxis has been riddled with controversy, including fears of clogged streets and confused cars wandering into fire zones and crime scenes.
SAN FRANCISCO – Taxis without drivers.
The concept has sparked controversy, unease, amazement and confusion. But a surge in ridership shows that many people prefer being driven by a computer rather than a person.
For Tienna Perez-Close, it's knowing she can get into a car and the driver won't be weird or invasive. For Leila Minowada, it's a safe, ultra-smooth ride that never makes her nauseous. For Lee Rogers, who's legally blind, it was the independence of being alone in a car for the first time in her life. And for Jay Hack, it's the chance to live for a moment in a future he's eagerly awaiting.
Each of these riders are among the more than 250,000 people per week who climb into driverless robo-taxis from Waymo for rides in Austin, Phoenix, Los Angeles, parts of Silicon Valley and all of San Francisco. They're expected to start in Atlanta, Miami and Washington D.C. in 2026.
The rollout has been riddled with controversy, including unnatural driving behaviors, safety concerns, fears of clogged streets and confused cars wandering into fire zones and crime scenes.
But 16 years after the first driverless taxis were tested in California, they now calmly wander up the steepest San Francisco byways (though Lombard Street is rarely a most efficient route, Waymo notes), thread their way through construction, traffic and bike lanes, dropping off and picking up passengers along the way. Their quiet electric hum (all are EVs) has become a new part of the city's soundscape.
Spend an evening out in popular nightlife areas like the Mission District, Hayes Valley or the Marina, and the constant stream of Waymos (owned by Google's parent company) dropping people off or picking them up can outnumber the Ubers and Lyfts.
No driver gives some riders 'peace of mind'
One constant among the women USA TODAY spoke with who routinely ride in Waymos is the notion of safety and the lack of real or potential harassment.
'It's peace of mind,' said Perez-Close, who frequently takes Waymos to her job at the hospital in the early morning hours.
'I don't know a woman who hasn't had an awkward Uber or Lyft," she said. The kind where they text their friends "'Hey, I'm in an Uber, here's a link to my ride. If I don't text you when I get home….''
"We just don't do that in Waymos,' she said.
Rogers says as thankful as she is for taxis, Ubers and Lyfts, 'there is still the factor that I have to depend that the driver will get me to a place safely.' With a Waymo, 'I don't have to depend on someone – it's just a vehicle.'
Meanwhile, other riders seek out driverless taxis because they believe computers are better drivers than human beings.
'I trust the computer and the algorithms and the training – it's got way more training than any human driver does,' said Tanya Shadoan, a 58-year-old San Franciscan.
Statistics bear this out. A study released in December by Swiss Re, a large insurance provider, found Waymos significantly safer than human-piloted cars.
According to the paper, in 25.3 million miles driven, Waymos were involved in nine property damage claims and two bodily injury claims (both of which are still open) For the same number of miles, human-driven vehicles could be expected to have 78 property damage and 26 bodily injury claims.
Part of this is, of course, that for now robotaxis only drive in very specific, carefully chosen spaces. They don't take passengers on freeways yet and all companies using the technology spend years mapping and testing roadways, first with human drivers who can take over at any moment.
Hack believes the technology is getting close to the point that it will always safer than humans. And when that happens, he sees a definite choice to be made.
'The moment that self-driving cars are the same cost, and killing an order of magnitude fewer people, then it's a moral imperative,' he said.
Updates are frequent. On May 14, Waymo said it had updated the software on more than 1,200 of its self-driving vehicles to address risks of collisions with chains, gates and other roadway barriers.
Downsides and upsides
There are definite downsides, say frequent users. In general, Waymos cost more than Ubers, Lyfts or taxis, though it can depend on time of day and whether there are any specials running.
'Though of course you don't have to tip,' said Andrew Dillon, a professor of user experience at the University of Texas, Austin.
That also relieves one of the annoyances of taxis and ride-hailing companies. 'Tipping,' Dillon said, 'is a high pressure situation.'
Waymos also sometimes require require a longer wait, because as many Waymos as there are, there are fewer of them than other ride-hailing options.
Hack says he typically decides what to take depending on timing. If a Waymo is only a few minutes more, he'll opt for that. 'But if it's 15 minutes more than an Uber, then it's not worth it.
On the other hand, they're often smoother than human-driven cars. Autonomous vehicles are designed to travel a little more cautiously and conservatively, which can make them less erratic than human-driven cars, said Susan Shaheen, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California Berkeley who's been studying self-driving cars for 30 years.
For those prone to carsickness the smoothness of the ride can be a major plus.
'Especially at night in an Uber when I can't see where we're going, the acceleration and stopping and starting can make me nauseous,' said Minowada, a former San Franciscan who's now studying in Japan.
A more meta concern is what the rise in self-driving cars might mean for transportation as a whole.
'There are competing narratives about the future of mobility,' said Jason Mark Henderson, a professor of geography and environment at San Francisco State University.
Will robotaxis cut into public transit, much as ride-hailing services did? Would things be different if they were publicly owned rather than private? Will there be haves, who can afford to pay for a robotaxi and have-nots who are left with the bus? And what will become of the more than one million Uber and Lyft drivers in the United States if they are no longer needed?
'We're at this moment when there's a fusion of Silicon Valley technology and mobility – which at the moment is extremely profitable,' Henderson said. 'It's a very urban, upper-income subset.'
Could this be the future?
Letting a computerized brain drive you around town becomes a non-issue so quickly even riders are surprised.
'It felt weird for like a minute when I first got into the car,' said Minowada, 25. 'Then I stopped thinking about it and I never thought about it again."
Researchers studying how people interact with self-driving cars say this is actually a very common reaction.
In 50 years, said Dillon, we could wonder why people persisted in driving themselves for so long.
'We may well look back at this period of history where car ownership was the norm, as an anomaly, a strange interlude in human history,' he said.
Well on their way to being safer, self-driving vehicles, with their ability to coordinate and behave efficiently, could also make for much less congested roads.
How they would do that is obvious any time you're waiting at a stoplight, said Dillon.
'The light goes green and notice how long it takes drivers to coordinate and move the traffic forward," he said. "If we had a networked system where control as taken away from humans, it would be much more efficient.'
For now, acceptance is a state-by-state and sometimes city-by-city proposition. Minowada remembers it took her a while to start riding in Waymos, and only after the people around her started taking them.
Faster than she would have thought possible, she was on the inside, looking out.
'I've been in Waymos now,' she said 'and had tourists taking pictures of me.'