Risky Business?

Let me just put this out there before we go any further.

I am just about as conservative and straitlaced as they come. I don’t live life on the edge; roller coasters, bungee jumping, and any activity that starts with the word “extreme” are all beyond my pay grade. I get joy out of alphabetizing my spices, plotting Yom Tov menus in Excel spreadsheets, and folding plastic shopping bags into precise, space-saving triangles, because you just never know when you might need a good bag.

So really, I don’t fit the profile of someone you would expect to volunteer to ride a robotaxi, especially because as a former computer programmer, I understand better than most how inadvertent human errors can have software behaving in unexpected ways. But when asked by the awesome powers that be of this magazine if I would be willing to fly 2,800 miles to do a story on Waymo, I silenced the alarm bells clanging loudly in my head, downloaded the Waymo One app onto my phone, and mentally started packing my bag for my upcoming trip.

Did I have nightmares just a few hours later about being driven around in a car whose steering wheel rotated crazily, all on its own, like something out of a horror movie? You bet I did. But taking on this assignment sounded like a fabulous adventure, and there was no way in the world that I was going to pass it up.

I am betting that, like me, you’ve probably never even heard of Waymo until now, which makes perfect sense since the ride-hailing service’s territory is still fairly limited. Waymo began offering fully driverless services to the general public in Phoenix, Arizona, in 2020, adding Los Angeles and San Francisco in California to its list of covered areas earlier this year. Even as the company continues to expand its coverage within those cities, it is also taking on new territories, with Waymo coming to both Texas and Georgia in 2025, giving riders in Austin and Atlanta their long-awaited chance to ride futuristic electric cars around town as well.

Not surprisingly, not everyone in my family was thrilled about my upcoming assignment. My teen granddaughters Chava and Leah were totally on board, enthusiastically clamoring to join me on my trip, while grandson Yaakov bluntly asked me why I thought riding in a self-driving car wasn’t going to get me killed. (I guess I should be grateful that I found the page on the Waymo website describing the supplemental accidental-death-and-dismemberment coverage that the company offers only two weeks after my trip. I’m not sure if that would have left me feeling inspired by their thoroughness or obsessively worrying about those possibilities.)

Meanwhile, I made sure to do my homework before I flew off to L.A. I watched multiple YouTube videos of people documenting their Waymo experiences, most of which were positive. Yes, there were stories of Waymo accidents and other mishaps, but those were fairly few and far between. And I wasn’t too worried about the stories of Waymo vehicles being vandalized and torched to oblivion in San Francisco. (Family members who’ve visited there reported to me that no one even blinked an eye as people stole bread from store shelves in that once-beautiful city last summer, so I knew it wasn’t the kind of place I had any intention of visiting anyway.)

The statistics that Waymo publishes on its website definitely appealed to my sense of order and security. The company has logged more than 40 million miles since its first car took to the streets of Phoenix, and over the first 22 million of those miles, its vehicles reported 84 percent fewer airbag deployments, 73 percent fewer injury-causing crashes, and 48 percent fewer crashes overall than human drivers traveling those same routes. I could get behind these numbers.

Equally reassuring were the statistics on the Waymo website — tens of thousands of people using the service every week, with 100 percent fewer bodily injury claims and 76 percent fewer property damage claims. A statement on the site by global reinsurer Swiss Re saying that Waymos are safer than human-driven vehicles wasn’t as encouraging as it could have been — while it was certainly nice to hear, the fact that the claim was based on a Swiss Re–Waymo collaborative study somewhat diminished its impact.

Still, the data was reassuring, and while obviously accidents can happen anytime, anywhere, I was all in on this project from that moment on. In fact, it wasn’t until I was sitting in Waymo’s front seat and ready to let the good times (hopefully) roll that I started to question the wisdom of my decision.

It’s probably best if I push rewind here for a minute, because there were a few things that needed to be done for this Waymo ride to actually happen. Because I live in New York and am outside of the company’s current territory, the first time I tried using the app, it instructed me to wait patiently for Waymo to come to my area. I scrolled down the screen and I hit my first roadblock: you can’t just request a Waymo in L.A. like you can in Phoenix or San Francisco — since the City of Angels is one of its newer service areas, you need an invite code to make the magic happen.

Imagining a scenario where I arrived in L.A. to write about Waymo but couldn’t actually call a car was even scarier than the concept of riding in one, and I reached out to the company, which sent me an invite code the next day. It was exasperating that since I wasn’t in Waymo-land, I couldn’t even test the code out to make sure it worked — but I figured if I could trust the company to transport me in an autonomous car, I could probably count on them to send me a valid invite code.

I also had to plan out a route that would create some nice photo opportunities. My first choice was Griffith Observatory, where I hoped we could get a picture of Waymo with the Hollywood sign in the background, but that got nixed since it was outside the car’s 79-square-mile service area in Los Angeles. I hit paydirt on my next choice — the Santa Monica Pier — where the visuals of the massive Ferris wheel, the beach, and the Pacific would make for some fabulous photos. With that nailed down, I was ready for my date with Waymo.

Cheap Thrills

The first thing I did after landing in LAX was to check out the app in real time to compare how Waymo stacked up against Uber and Lyft. I started typing “Santa Monica Pier” into the search bar, but Waymo wouldn’t allow it — apparently the pier was just outside of its service area.

I wracked my brain to come up with another place with a distinctive vibe, but my knowledge of L.A. basically revolves around what is near Fish Grill, which left me pretty much back where I started.I decided to try for a spot that was an easy walk to the pier. Apparently the 400 feet between the Heal the Bay Aquarium and the Santa Monica Pier make all the difference in the world to Waymo, and the app gave me a price of $29.77 for the ride, compared to $31.99 on Lyft and $30.92 on Uber. No, not major savings — but they do add up, especially when you realize that with no driver in the Waymo car, there is no need to tip.

Five hours later, I was standing on a side street in Beverly Hills summoning a Waymo, mentally cuing up the theme music from Jaws as I waited for my chariot to arrive. Seven minutes later, a gleaming white Jaguar came gliding silently up the block, the domed screen atop its round hood-mounted sensor flashing the initials “MM” (for Mishpacha magazine, of course). Waymo came to a stop right in front of me, and a notification popped up on my phone telling me to press the button on the app that would unlock the car door.

Waymo was the perfect gentleman, if you can apply that moniker to a car, allowing a five-minute grace period (traffic permitting), in case you aren’t at the chosen spot on time; the ability to set the temperature anywhere between 59 and 83 degrees; and the choice of any seat in the vehicle, with the exception of the disturbingly vacant driver’s spot. If you’ve ever ordered a car for an airport ride and been vexed to discover that the driver is already using most of the car’s storage space (#BeenThereDoneThat), you’ll love the fact that Waymo’s trunk is blissfully empty and large enough to hold three carry-on bags, two pieces of full-sized luggage, a double stroller, or a folded wheelchair.

With interactive screens both front and back, every Waymo passenger has a bird’s-eye view of what the vehicle’s many sensors are seeing — cars, pedestrians, bikers, crosswalks, and traffic lights — in addition to a clear view of a green line representing your route. Also visible on the screen are your drop-off time, sound system controls, and two very important buttons — one to pull the car over at any time, and another to call a living, breathing human for support.

I checked out the car and its many widgets and gadgets until, finally, there was no avoiding the moment of truth — Waymo was waiting for me to get the ball rolling, its blue “Start Ride” button glowing (ominously? cheerfully? maybe a little of both?) on the screen.

Telling those little voices in my head that were shrieking this is a bad idea!! to go take a hike, I reached out and hit the “Start ride” button. Waymo responded by reminding me to make sure my seat belt was buckled before turning on its left blinker and pulling smoothly away from the curb. For the first few minutes, being in a Waymo was a lot like taking a teenager out to practice for their road test. It’s that feeling where you don’t exactly trust the person (or in this case, technology) behind the wheel, and knowing that without an auxiliary brake, you have no way prevent a mistake that could turn you into an unpleasant statistic.

But once I got over my initial moments of panic, I couldn’t help but notice that Waymo drove like a boy scout taking his road test, reminding me of a 2018 snowstorm advisory that went viral, advising viewers to drive like Grandma was in the backseat next to two gallons of sweet tea and a platter of biscuits, wearing a new dress and holding a crockpot filled with gravy.

Waymo obeyed the speed limit religiously, never ran red lights, and always signaled before changing lanes. The only less-than-smooth move came when someone cut in front of us as we headed up a hill, prompting Waymo to brake rather abruptly. I have no doubt that the fact that Waymo was playing calming music the entire ride also helped.

It took us 37 minutes to get to the pier, and it was fascinating to realize that while a human driver driving westward would have been squinting uncomfortably into the soon-to-be-setting sun, Waymo wasn’t at all fazed. The car also had to deal with a reasonable amount of L.A. traffic, which included threading its way between a line of double-parked cars and a bus in the oncoming lane. By the time we got to the pier, I was astonished to realize that I could honestly classify the ride as pleasant.

In retrospect, my only truly alarming moment came when I discovered that while Waymo thoughtfully provided a USB-C charging port in the center console, facing the backseat, I had only a regular USB cable with me at the time, and my phone was running dangerously low. How would I call another Waymo to get me back to my hotel if my battery was dead?

As Waymo dropped me off a relatively short walk away from the aquarium, it reminded me to check the trunk for anything I might have left there. Because I wanted to make sure Waymo didn’t drive away before I gathered all my things, I left one car door open, reasoning that as long as the doors weren’t all closed, the car wasn’t going anywhere. Not that I was particularly worried — with multiple cameras inside every vehicle, locating lost items is as easy as reaching out to customer support, but that I still wanted to avoid that part of the Waymo experience.

Waymo World

Being able to book a ride in a self-driving car seems crazy, but describing Waymo as unbelievable isn’t entirely accurate — futuristic is a better term.

The company started in 2009 as Google’s Self-Driving Car Project. It became an independent entity in 2016, launching public trials in Phoenix just one year later. Over time, Waymo evolved from its original platform: the Google-built Firefly (which actually had no steering wheel or brake pedal) to Chrysler Pacifica hybrid minivans, shifting its entire fleet to I-Pace, Jaguar’s all-electric SUV, in 2023.

Waymo vehicles are covered in sensors that, like a toddler hopped up on an entire box of Fruity Pebbles, are constantly moving, employing a variety of technologies — lidar, cameras, and radar — to collect data in all directions. Waymo’s algorithms use that information to calculate the size and distance of nearby objects, pedestrians, vehicles, traffic-control devices, and other critical items to provide a safe ride in any weather or lighting conditions. Given the critical nature of that never-ending stream of data, built-in wipers, nozzles, and other gizmos occasionally kick in to keep the robotaxi’s sensors sparkling clean.

Artificial intelligence generates just one of the data streams that allow Waymo to respond in real time to its surroundings, with autonomous technology mapping out the best route while also ensuring smooth acceleration, braking, and deceleration. Waymo is so full-featured that the Help and FAQ sections of its website span dozens of pages, covering topics ranging from how its cars deal with law enforcement (pulling over for lights and sirens, and having human support interacting with police through the vehicle’s in-car speakers) and options for those with special needs (including wheelchair-accessible robotaxis and special features for the hearing- and vision-impaired.)

While Waymo offers driverless rides, it is far from a rules-free environment, and interior cameras ensure that passengers comply with the company’s standards. Those under 18 can only ride with an adult, while kids under eight are relegated to the back, with parents responsible for bringing their own safety seats if they have young’uns in tow. There are no pets or weapons allowed inside a Waymo, with smoking, vaping, drugs, and alcohol also on the list of forbidden items. Violations of those conditions can result in a $100 cleaning fee for a first offense, with repeated infractions resulting in increased fines as well as the possibility of being banned from Waymo-world.

With each one of Waymo’s shiny white Jaguars retrofitted with dozens of high-tech cameras and sensors, one can’t help but wonder just how much each one of those vehicles cost. Anjelica Price-Roja, the Waymo public relations manager who was nice enough to send me my invite code, declined to share that information. I do know, however, that the base price on an I-Pace is just above $70,000, and according to a 2023 New York Times report, each outfitted car costs in the neighborhood of $200,000. Waymo has approximately 700 vehicles on the road today.

Just how sophisticated are Waymo’s many sensors? In a word, very. Like a human driver, Waymo needs to be able to recognize anything and everything that it might encounter on the road, whether it be vehicles, joggers, debris, temporary road signs, or anything else. It also needs to being able to react correctly in real time.

How the Waymo Driver programming collects, processes, and shares this data throughout the company’s fleet of cars is far beyond the scope of this article. Suffice it to say that the dizzying array of technology incorporated into every Waymo vehicle does an amazing job of dealing with the many nuances of the road, be it driving down a quiet side street, navigating the passenger pickup lane at the airport, or pulling over to the side of the road to allow emergency vehicles to pass.

And it’s not just that Waymo has to be able to deal with other drivers; human motorists also have to learn to share the road with autonomous vehicles that may or may not look like something out of a sci-fi movie.

A friend of mine told me about an elderly driver who found himself face to “face” with a Waymo vehicle at a stop sign in the Hancock Park section of L.A. Even though he had gotten there first, he wasn’t going to cross that intersection until the Waymo was gone. The Waymo, on the other hand, knew the rules of the road, which meant that the other car had the right of way, so it wasn’t moving either.

When it became clear that the Waymo was waiting for him to move, the elderly gentleman rolled down his window, extended his hand and waved at the Waymo, indicating, “it’s okay, you go first.” Recognizing the gesture, the Waymo drove off. While Waymo is currently operating only in locales with fairly warm climates, the cars have been tested in more than 25 cities to ensure that they can handle all kinds of weather. To date, Waymo has successfully navigated San Francisco’s fog, Washington State’s perpetual rain, Phoenix’s desert conditions, and even Michigan’s Upper Peninsula snows. But whether or not the robotaxis will be coming to cities that experience severe winters at any point in time in the near future is anyone’s guess.

My Way(mo) or the Highway?

It goes without saying that once I got to the pier, it was time to turn around and do the whole trip over again in reverse, with one small exception — I needed Waymo to pose for some pictures against that gorgeous backdrop I had in mind.

I walked a block from where Waymo had dropped me off and found myself with an unobstructed view of the Pacific, as well as the pier’s magnificent scenery. I gave Waymo the address of where I was standing and put away my phone as I waited for the car to come and meet me.

Which was a mistake. Because despite the address I had put in, Waymo pulled up exactly where it had left me off 10 minutes earlier, one block away, in front of a small building that, quite obviously, wasn’t anywhere nearly as photogenic as the ocean. At first, I hoped it was someone else’s Waymo, but I couldn’t miss that rotating “MM” on top of the car or the message on the app telling me to push the button to unlock Waymo’s doors. I had completely missed the page in the Waymo website’s FAQs that talked about how you can modify your pickup spot, although whether or not Waymo considered the address I had chosen to be a safe space to pull over is anyone’s guess.

Not knowing any way to get Waymo to back up a block for me, we just went with the situation as it was. My photographer swapped out lenses on his camera multiple times trying to compose a photo that screamed L.A., even if it wasn’t exactly what I had pictured. As he snapped away, a bearded gentleman across the street put down a case of beer he had been holding to take pictures of the car as well, approaching me afterward to find out about the car and how it works.

I filled him with whatever information I knew, and he was clearly intrigued, telling me that he figured he would take a spin in a Waymo that night, just for fun. I didn’t have the heart to tell my new very-tattooed friend that his chances of scoring an invite code in the next couple of hours were slim to none.

Interestingly enough, the trip back to my starting point was seven minutes longer than my way there, and also cost about 40 percent more, a difference that I assume was based on a greater demand for Waymo’s services at a busier time of day. I would have loved to see how Waymo performed on the highway, which would have shaved a few minutes off the trip, but for now, service in L.A. runs only on local streets, so whether or not I would have found Waymo relaxing at freeway speeds is going to remain one of life’s little mysteries.

Encountering a lot more traffic heading back up to Beverly Hills gave me more time to take note of the experience, both inside the car and out. I watched how Waymo dealt with other cars in local traffic and the ever-present stream of pedestrians at every red light. I chuckled at the irony of seeing how the seatbelt was securely fastened at the completely empty driver’s seat. I caught the shadow of the rooftop spinner’s frenzied fluttering cast by the setting sun behind us, a reassuring reminder that Waymo never stops assessing and evaluating the road.

At no point in time did I consider touching or even trying to turn Waymo’s steering wheel, a definite violation of notices prominently displayed inside the Jaguar. Messing with a vehicle that held my life in its hands just didn’t seem like a smart idea.

I confess, I did try to push Waymo’s proverbial buttons once I was safely out of the vehicle, standing about five feet in front of the car on the quiet side street where it had deposited me, just to see what would happen.

After about two minutes of realizing that it was blocked and couldn’t move, Waymo honked its horn and a voice boomed from somewhere on the car telling me firmly but politely to step away from the car. Which I did, of course — Waymo had been good to me, and I wasn’t looking to give it a hard time.

Race to the Finish

Without a doubt, Waymo is the current leader in the robotaxi business, with its competitors all struggling to find their footing.

General Motors’ Cruise vehicles lost their permits to operate autonomously in California after one of its cars struck a woman who had already been hit by another car last fall, dragging her 20 feet. The company has spent a year revamping its operations and is starting to put human-driven vehicles back on the streets, with a goal of starting street-testing of its autonomous Chevy Bolts in the coming months. According to news website Axios, Waymo’s other competitors include Amazon’s Zoox, which is testing its self-driving cars in several cities, and Motional and Volkswagen, whose entries into the robotaxi market both lag far behind.

Waymo may be the king of the robotaxis for now, but the company’s evolution hasn’t been problem-free. The Associated Press reported that within the past year alone, Waymo has had two significant recalls — the first after one of its autonomous cars hit a telephone pole in Phoenix, and the second when a pickup truck being towed was hit twice within minutes by two different Waymos. There have been other incidents over the years as well, but Waymo has addressed those concerns and continues to tout its safety record through press releases, social media, and other outlets.

While autonomous ride-hailing may be appealing to some, there is definitely one demographic that would likely love to see Waymo failing in a big way — drivers for Uber and similar services. If Waymo can succeed in its mission to prove to the public that its cars are considerably safer than those driven by humans, even passengers suspicious of robotaxis might be persuaded to take that giant leap into the future, particularly if it comes with financial savings.

And the writing does seem to be on the wall at Uber, which will be partnering with Waymo in Austin and Atlanta, where drivers will only be able to order Waymos on the Uber app. In 2023, the two companies joined forces to a certain extent, and riders in Phoenix who indicate in their preferences that they are open to riding in a robotaxi may find a Waymo picking them up instead of a flesh-and-blood driver.

The collaboration between the two companies is something that no sane person would have predicted years ago, after Waymo sued Uber in 2017, alleging that it had stolen proprietary technology in its short-lived autonomous vehicle startup. The lawsuit, as well as the $245 million settlement Uber paid Waymo, seems to be water under the bridge, with Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi touting the companies’ joint efforts in Austin and Atlanta in a recent press release as “mobility magic,” while Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana expressed her delight at being able to “bring the comfort, convenience, and safety of the Waymo driver to these cities in partnership with Uber.”

End of the Road

Waymo is still in its infancy, with just a tiny percentage of the United States population having the opportunity to choose between a human or autonomous driver.

I wish I could have spent a few days putting Waymo through its paces — especially in Phoenix, where the cars travel the highway and were recently approved to do terminal pickups at Sky Harbor International Airport. But even my two relatively short rides back and forth between Beverly Hills and Santa Monica were enough to turn me into a Waymo fan.

As much as people say they are leery of self-driving cars, there is something to be said for being able to enjoy your personal space and not being at the mercy of a chatty Uber driver, or worse yet, having to sit two feet away from a sketchy one. Not once did Waymo interrupt me while I was trying to catch up on my daily Tehillim.

Not once did Waymo tell me it had only been driving for one week or that it was younger than my youngest child. Not once did Waymo complain about feeling disrespected by a frum girl politely asking for the radio to be turned off — all scenarios I have encountered with Uber or Lyft drivers in the past six months. Best of all, not once during either of my Waymo rides did I ever feel the need to stomp on an imaginary brake or to grab the armrest because its driving was making me nervous.

Before I left to L.A., I thought I would feel the need to bentsh Gomel after saying goodbye to Waymo, but that wasn’t the case at all. As my Jag pulled away from the curb and headed off to its next fare, I pulled out my phone and called Mom, now that I was safely back on terra firma.

“You actually went in that car??” my mother asked me, the shock and incredulity evident in her voice as I filled her in on my Waymo adventure.

“Yup, I did,” I told her. “And it was awesome.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1033)