I was at a conference in Phoenix in November and took seven Waymo trips during my stay. Four of those were fairly long (20-minute) trips. I preferred Waymo to the Uber/Lyft experience because it felt private. It was just me and my colleagues in the car, no strangers. It also felt futuristic and novel, which I'm sure will wear off. We experienced no weird or erratic driving, with one minor exception... Waymo always followed the speed limit. On a major road where the speed limit was 40mph, other cars were zipping around us at 55mph+. And, one parking lot had 5mph speed limit signs posted. As you can imagine, Waymo was the slowest vehicle in that parking lot by a wide margin.
I’d say about 30% of the time I take an Uber, I have an interesting conversation with the driver. The best instance of this was about a decade ago, when the driver was a guy from Syria, and he explained the ongoing civil war there and the various factions as we drove 45 minutes across LA.
Self-driving cars are just one more way everyone becomes isolated from each other, I guess.
Another 30% of the time, the driver is making calls to the DMV or spouting conspiracy theories during the drive. I enjoy talking to strangers casually when I can easily walk away, but I don't enjoy being forced to talk to strangers casually over a half hour ride.
Do they have microphones inside the car? How do you know? That "feeling" of privacy probably encourages people to talk more openly, which if there are microphones inside...
I did the same in the Bay Area this week, and had the same experience as you. Not that I hate human drivers, but sometimes it was nice after being around people all day to just have some personal space. And my trips were also around your length and similarly uneventful. I definitely can't wait til they are around my area.
