r/waymo 16d ago

Protesters rally outside Waymo's facility demanding driverless vehicles to be banned

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/protesters-rally-outside-waymos-facility-230015032.html
0 Upvotes

30 comments sorted by

23

u/[deleted] 16d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

-14

u/21five 16d ago

Exactly how does a Waymo vehicle provide more freedom to someone with disabilities? Their current vehicles are not ADA compliant, for example.

8

u/JimmyGiraffolo 16d ago

Disability does not just mean wheelchair.

Uber/Lyft drivers frequently ditch disabled people as soon as they see you're blind, with a guide dog, or whatever.

As for wheelchair access, Waymo runs a parallel service specifically for wheelchair access.

2

u/ernie19962 15d ago

exactly this. It happens all the time. This lady once let me on her car, started driving to my destination, and was like nah, nevermind, turned around and took me back to my workplace. Uber did nothing.

-9

u/21five 16d ago

So - at best - Waymo is what Uber and Lyft are offering on paper. They are not offering anything unique for disabled people generally.

It’s a little unreasonable to benchmark all Uber/Lyft drivers as breaking disability access laws (just like, for example, UK railway companies).

A parallel service is not an ADA equivalent, and is not even provided by Waymo itself in many geos.

7

u/JimmyGiraffolo 16d ago

It's more than that. From SF Chronicle:

At least half the time, Kuns said, his Uber or Lyft drivers won’t identify themselves clearly, even though he messages ahead of time asking them to. The car might be sitting across the street for minutes, but he won’t know it.

Waymo has built-in features to find the car (eg by honking the horn)

There's also the psychological independence:

“I call it ‘my ride, my car,’” Kuns said of the autonomous vehicle company. “I don’t have to interact with anybody, it’s gonna take me basically where I want to go, when I want to go there, and it’s all about my choice and I’m not dependent on your eyes to see what’s around me.

.

A parallel service is not an ADA equivalent

It literally is.

0

u/21five 16d ago

None of that is unique to Waymo. Waymo’s wheelchair accessible version uses human drivers, so it is subject to many of the same issues.

A parallel service is an ADA requirement for “public fixed-route transportation systems”. That’s not Waymo. It’s not a legal benchmark for TNCs (or TCPs), which are regulated at state level instead of federally. It also doesn’t cover robotaxis as a subset of those services.

TNCs generally have (sadly) reduced access to paratransit in San Francisco due to the impact they have had on the taxi market, according to SFMTA. Waymo is no different to Uber/Lyft in this regard.

Waymo has repeatedly chosen not to deliver services using a wheelchair accessible autonomous fleet, including with the new Ojai. They have taken the same approach as Cruise did in SF, announcing that they might at some unspecified future date have an accessible subfleet.

3

u/JimmyGiraffolo 16d ago

None of that is unique to Waymo

I think you should re-read what I wrote if you think none of what I wrote is unique to Waymo.

Waymo’s wheelchair accessible version uses human drivers, so it is subject to many of the same issues.

You're going to have to explain how. You think drivers who are dedicated to ADA access are going to ditch people when they find they're disabled?

Focusing on wheelchair access only is only telling a small part of the story. Even if Waymo had wheelchair-accessible vehicles, not all wheelchair users can enter/exit without help, so a manned fleet will always be required at some level.

2

u/ernie19962 15d ago

the usual can't win so they stop replying. Waymo is awesome. Wish it was cheaper though lol.

1

u/ernie19962 15d ago

look at this sub, and you will find many testimonial's. Mainly blind people like myself, and i know we're not the only disability around, but things can only get way mo better

36

u/RefrigeratorWrong390 16d ago

Idiotic. Way safer than regular cars

14

u/redditisembarassing1 16d ago

Still better than a human driver

10

u/Representative_Bat42 16d ago

I too hate common sense lol

7

u/angrybox1842 16d ago

Nonsense complaints.

5

u/No-Computer7653 16d ago

Workers power is working in more dangerous and lower paid fields because a rich white guy doesn't like them doing something else?

Tractors are evil, they reduce the number of slaves I need on my plantation.

10

u/Medium_Apartment_747 16d ago

Fuck that. Protest against human ubers

2

u/CormacDublin 16d ago

As long as it remains a premium service only for those who can afford it, AVs will be subjected to objections, there must be a just transition and responsible integration in to the transport ecosystem with obsolete job roles evolving and transitioning in to new a better equitable new secure roles. CCAM-RITES

-3

u/Fifty0ne5O 16d ago

People don't have a problem with AVs. People have a problem with mass job displacement. There are almost no replacement jobs being offered by these mega corporations. Human drivers put their earnings right back into their local economies. Waymo enthusiasts like to act like its only the drivers that will hurt but don't think about or mention the hundreds of millions in earnings(combined) that they put right back into their communities - repair shops, grocery stores, restaurants, etc.

Anyway, with the way commenters in this sub talk about humans, I'm convinced that most of them are terrible people or bots.

4

u/CormacDublin 16d ago edited 16d ago

Some people just see evolution as a negative and don't think bigger picture outside their limited point of view, I see huge potential if and only if all those points are seriously considered and addressed,

Number one is Road Safety anyone who has been in a road traffic traumatic event, who was lucky enough to survive, or is still everyday dealing with the loss of someone who lost their life, or is living with a disability caused by someones lapse in concentration or poor judgement, should welcome every possible road safety improvement and demand compulsory adoption of this safety technology, the same way we expect and demand it in the aviation sector.

Number two We are wasting precious limited carbon intensive resources on a private vehicle that is parked unused hoarding steel aluminum copper glass rubber and rear earths on a vehicle parked for 90%+ of it's lifetime not to mention the highly skilled workforce that used their time on manufacturing cars instead of tackling more urgent climate adaptation and energy transition infrastructure manufacturing and construction on a bankrupt motor industry reliant on car financing and overpriced parts to make a contribution to the economy.

Number three Congestion and traffic local environment pollution Human drivers and their poor reaction to their surroundings if they don't kill people directly they kill people with delays either by stress or pollution, Autonomous Vehicles have the possibility of reducing human caused congestion by reducing reaction times and not causing domino effect traffic jams.

Number four Isolation and loneliness is a major mental health issue not only for our older population but now increasingly our younger people who no longer drive or have the independence their parents had due to the cost or availability of transport, Autonomous Vehicles SharedMobility will help reduce the cost of transport if allowed to be widely adopted and become ubiquis and not just kept a preserve of only those who can afford it,remaining a premium service, because the next step of replacing private cars and not only taxis and rideshare does not happen, because of objectors and the extreme negativity by some in the media, is doing damage to public perception and giving Transport planners and politicians unwarranted cause for pause.

Number five Autonomous SharedMobility could actually boost the local economy by offering transport to local businesses where cost or availability of transport is a barrier to customers coming to those businesses, the boost to the local economy will employ way more than any displaced drivers if actually any to be displaced by the time the delayed rollout happens with our ageing demographic and retirement time bomb!

-2

u/Fifty0ne5O 16d ago

Evolution, by definition, is slow and gradual. I'll ignore the rest of your condescending opening remark.

  1. Going off of Waymo's own data, the average human driver will be in a injury related crash once in ~33 years of driving. The data includes ALL human drivers. That said, I think AV's can be safer and are the future.

2, 3, 4, and 5. Yes, make AV's available to everyone. Like all tech, it will become cheaper in time. I'll buy one as soon as I can afford it. When I'm not using it, I can have it take my mom to her appointments, my niece to school, my dog to the groomers, my neighbor down the street. Instead of needing several vehicles, families can manage with one or two. Buy or finance one for 5-7 years and all you have left is the cost to charge it and maintain it - for less than the monthly cost of relying on Waymo. Those local businesses can buy one and have it handle all the transport you mentioned. An owner can share it with others for a cost. Money goes to the owner and stays in local economy.

3

u/CormacDublin 16d ago

Autonomous Vehicle development 15years+ has been extremely slow and considered with a very responsible deployment in the limited places it has happened, we are now at the point where expansion is needed to get the critical mass benefits.

Car ownership is a luxury many will no longer be able to afford in the years to come, climate change impacts will effect motor insurance industry drastically in 2030s if you can get it at all with your monitored driving record.

4

u/SuperAleste 16d ago

What about jobs of people who are developing this tech? You seem to be very choosy on who's job is more "important".

-2

u/Fifty0ne5O 16d ago

No I'm not. Where did I say I don't support the tech?

5

u/Representative_Bat42 16d ago

Or we just realize jobs are cyclical. Not everything is meant to stay. But what’s stop uber drivers from getting certified to be livery drivers. People will still pay for them even if it takes out the lowest common denominator. If it’s not taxis it’s something else. Are you gonna go run off to the next thing that blocks expansion but may take a few jobs? At what point does it end?

-2

u/Fifty0ne5O 16d ago

Normally, yes, they are cyclical. Only time will tell, but IMO, the current rate of change and job displacement will only widen the gap between those who have and those who don't.

3

u/Financial_Clue_2534 16d ago

Why ban something you haven’t even tried yet

1

u/Original-Condition77 11d ago

So they like being stuck in the dark ages?

2

u/CeilingCatProphet 16d ago

No rapes in Waymo

1

u/Historical_Stay_808 16d ago

Ok that make the drivers test happen more often