Los Angeles, for drivers, has never been for the faint of heart. A country where most people can’t fathom life without wheels offers a daily parade of frustrations: congestion, accidents, construction, road rage, fatigue.
Every transplant has a story of learning to adapt.
“You get into a rhythm of matching everyone else’s energy,” said Tamara Siemering, 30, an actress who moved from Sacramento a year ago. The difference in car culture here, he said, is wild.
“It feels very self-centered,” he said. “Everybody’s like, ‘I’ve got somewhere to be, out of my way.’ There’s not a lot of cooperative driving – there’s a lot of honking at each other and speeding and zooming.’
Now joining the fray is a whole new type of motorist – one who presents himself as measured and unemotional, respectful and obedient. That is, there is no driver at all.
Waymo, a fleet of self-driving taxis already operating in San Francisco and Phoenix, has begun transporting passengers in a small area of ​​Los Angeles County. The white Jaguar sports cars – distinguished by their rotating black canopies that cover an array of cameras and sensors – have been cleared for commercial rides, with free trips available to a select few. It will soon offer a paid service with prices comparable to those charged by Uber and Lyft.
Owned by Alphabet, the parent company of Google, Waymo bills its self-driving vehicles as “the world’s most experienced drivers.” There is already a list of 50,000 people waiting for a chance to drive one in Los Angeles. For some, the intrigue is the technology. Others are attracted to the idea of ​​avoiding small talk and pressure for a tip.
But civic leaders have protested Waymo’s arrival, warning of safety risks, while labor unions are wary of how it could affect jobs in an already saturated market. And many residents aren’t so sure they’d trust an empty driver’s seat.
Among them is Ms. Siemering. She wants to hear more about how the robot cars navigate the city’s intense car culture before jumping in herself.
“It’s a bit tentative – I want to wait and see how it goes,” he said. “I don’t really want to be the test, the guinea pig.” Her own 1996 Ford Taurus was on a fender in January. But she plans to stick to the bus or rely on human Uber and Lyft drivers to get to her day job as a bartender at a caviar bar in West Hollywood.
Waymo’s footprint will, initially, be tiny. With fewer than 50 cars, its territory is limited to about 63 square miles, stretching from Santa Monica to downtown Los Angeles. At present, it will not operate at the airport and its cars do not run on the highways that are such stations in the area.
The company recognizes those drawbacks, but wants to be cautious about expanding while serving those who need rides close to home, said Chris Ludwick, Waymo’s director of product management. He hopes that nervous riders will soon learn that there are few experiences quite like driving completely alone in a luxury car.
“Having your own space that you can control is kind of magical,” Mr Ludwick said. “You can put on any music you want, you can change the temperature. It’s your space. You can be what you want, do what you want.”
He added that safety is at the forefront of the company’s efforts. “We take our driving behavior extremely seriously,” Mr Ludwick said.
Last fall, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass sent a letter to the California Public Utilities Commission insisting that autonomous vehicles needed more testing and that local jurisdictions should have more power over them.
He cited several issues in San Francisco, including instances where vehicles ignored yellow emergency tape and warning signs, entered an active fire scene and parked on top of a fire hydrant, contributed to the death of a person by blocking an ambulance, and dragged a pedestrian 20 feet . Some of the most troubling incidents involved Cruise, an autonomous vehicle company that was ordered by state regulators in October to shut down its taxi service.
But dozens of groups supported Waymo’s expansion into Los Angeles when the Public Utilities Commission reviewed its decision this year. Among them were disability rights groups who argued that autonomous taxis give their constituents the freedom to travel without having to rely on other people.
“This fulfills the dreams of countless blind Americans to have full autonomy in our transportation in the same way as any other citizen with a driver’s license,” Mark A. Riccobono, president of the National Federation of the Blind, wrote to the committee. February.
Waymo, which began hosting pop-up tours in Los Angeles in October, was approved earlier this month for its wider rollout. It also has plans to offer services in San Mateo County, which is located in Northern California, and Austin, Texas.
Labor unions and workers fear the arrival of autonomous vehicles threatens livelihoods and will put even more pressure on drivers, who they say are already suffering from inflation, high gas prices and low compensation.
“We have to work twice as many hours to make the same income while we see robots taking over the industry,” said Nicole Moore, president of Rideshare Drivers United, an organization of 20,000 drivers across California.
Many ride-hailing drivers see the industry shifting to computers one day. But some also share a collective smile. Good luck, they say, handling the idiosyncrasies of pick-ups and drop-offs.
Passengers have been unknowingly pampered by customs that adapt to their needs and break the rules. This means you can stand wherever you like and wait for your car to show up. Those in a hurry can ask to step on the gas. And alternative routes can be suggested.
“Waymo will enforce the speed limit, they won’t pick you up at red lights or fire hydrants or bus lanes — they’ll make you walk to the car,” said Sergio Avedian, who drives for Uber in Los Angeles. and a contributor to The Rideshare Guy, a website for gig drivers.
“If I go to Hollywood at 1 in the morning, I’m double-parked, if not triple-parked, because there’s a million people there,” he said.
Mr. Avedian drove a Waymo car a few weeks ago and came away impressed with the ride quality. But he saw how commuters might get annoyed with his code that could force him to avoid a construction zone and park two blocks away.
And while Waymo has a devoted following in Phoenix and San Francisco, some worry it’s not a good fit in a city where about 340 people are expected to die in traffic accidents in 2023. It was the first time in nine years that the deaths related to with traffic accidents they outnumber homicides.
“I don’t trust them with something that weighs 4,000 pounds going 60 miles an hour,” said Jim Honeycutt, a construction manager working on the building of several Los Angeles subway stations.
Mr Honeycutt, 75, doesn’t buy into the idea that software could make better decisions where humans can make mistakes. “Because,” he said, “people invented computers.”
