The driverless taxis of the American platform Waymo, which already operates in Phoenix, San Francisco and Los Angeles, have a waiting list of users who want to register in the application. Despite the difficulty, we were able to take a ride in one of their autonomous vehicles and we must admit that the first time is a most curious experience.
During a stay in San Francisco, we get an access code and request one of the taxis through the application, which allows us to say where we want to go, tells us the route it will take and tells us the price it will cost. There are between 100 and 300 in circulation, depending on the time of day. In three minutes we had him at the door, ready to pick us up.
Sure enough, there was no one in the driver's seat, the car was empty and a voice welcomed us. In front of the passenger seats, in the center, is a touchscreen with a large button that says Start Ride.
This screen allows us to choose music, control the air conditioning and see the map with the route we are taking, among other options.
Once we touch Start, the car starts moving and definitively buries the concept we had of a taxi with a driver. It's very strange for the first few minutes, but then everything goes back to normal: the steering wheel turns on its own, the car goes at a moderate speed, respects all signals, and the sensors detect all surrounding objects. It's time to enjoy the trip.
As we approach the destination, the car's voice warns us to prepare and gives us a final indication on how to unlock and open the door. When it has stopped, we just have to get off and leave, since the app already has our payment card incorporated and will automatically charge us the agreed price.
Driverless taxis are not without controversy. Until a few days ago, there were two autonomous taxi companies in San Francisco: Waymo (owned by Google) and Cruise (owned by General Motors). Well, the state of California has revoked Cruise's license for repeated incidents, almost all of them minor, but which have given rise to numerous complaints.
Yes, there have been, but they have had consequences. Due to poor decisions made by the car, there have been cases of traffic jams and chaos. In one of these incidents, the Cruise platform has been accused of having prevented an ambulance from reaching a person who ended up dying. In another situation - the one that caused the suspension - one of Cruise's taxis dragged along the ground a woman who was hit by another car with a human driver, who fled.
In the case of Waymo, the fleet seems to be running more smoothly and there have been no major problems so far. On one occasion, however, there was a collision with a fire truck. Perhaps they would have to implement a system that, upon detecting an emergency siren, would cause the vehicle to stop or reduce speed in the event of a collision.
In total, 102 accidents have been recorded between the two companies in the more than 10 million kilometers they have traveled without a driver. This is equivalent to approximately one accident every 100,000 km (equivalent to an average of about five years of human driving).
Furthermore, these are accidents at very low speeds and, for the most part, are the fault of the other driver. It will take more experience and hours of driving to demonstrate whether they are more or less safe than human driving, but for now these data are very promising.
We will see how taxi unions and associations react to the arrival of these new technologies in Europe.
