When did everything become “amazing”? I was told by a sales assistant the other day that putting in my PIN number was “amazing”. A flight attendant remarked that buckling my seat belt was, likewise, “amazing”. It’s the all-purpose adjective used, it seems to me, by anyone under 40 years of age. But what to say now when you discover something that really makes you gasp in amazement, that truly, deeply astonishes you? “Amazing” doesn’t really cut it any more.
And so, I’m not quite sure how adequately to describe the mind-blowing feeling of being driven around one of the world’s busiest, most congested cities in a car without a driver. Even though our world has been transformed through technology, I can’t remember a single moment when I paused to think that I have just seen the future. But, in the back seat of a driverless Waymo taxi in Los Angeles last week, I had such an awe-inspiring experience.
This is the future, I thought, and, what’s more, it works. The all-electric Waymo car, a radar-equipped Jaguar, offered a totally frictionless, efficient and safe journey through the clogged arteries of downtown LA. Cheaper than an Uber, too (no need to tip, either). And, once you get used to the idea of being chauffeured by a ghost, it is a very pleasant way to travel. No requirement to make small talk with a stranger, and you felt in the hands, or algorithm, rather, of a very competent and polite driver, one who gives way to cyclists and who, remarkably, anticipates the unexpected action of a bad driver, or inattentive pedestrian. Independent research found that Waymo vehicles had 85 per cent fewer single-vehicle crashes than human drivers.
Waymo is owned by Alphabet, the tech behemoth, owner of Google, and which is, by most measures, the second biggest company in the world. It started offering its services to the public in Phoenix, Arizona, in 2020 and Waymo now operates in 10 major cities in the US, and the company – giving about half a million rides a week at present – is aiming for a million a week before the year is out.
And they will soon be over here. Often under the cover of darkness, Waymo is currently conducting tests of autonomous vehicles on the streets of London and, according to latest soundings, it will be available for paying passengers in some parts of the capital later this year. The Government is ready to change regulations to enable driverless taxis to operate in the city. “We know that unlike human drivers, automated vehicles don’t get tired, don’t get distracted and don’t drive under the influence,” said transport minister, Lilian Greenwood.
Which brings us to a very salient point. Here’s another technological development which diminishes human engagement, and so the honest objection to autonomous taxis isn’t about safety, it’s about the social cost. Not only are the jobs of London’s 100,000 licensed taxi and minicab drivers at risk through the advent of Waymo, our interface, such as it is, will be with a robot, not with someone who has a story to tell, whether they come from Acton or Afghanistan.
Is this a spinning jenny moment in the history of public transport? Those who have devoted four years to learning the knowledge are right to fear a future that belongs to an automated car whose experience of London’s streets was established on a laptop. But we are in the throes of a new Industrial Revolution, one which will make our roads safer, improve the air quality and give passengers more security. Besides, progress never comes without disruption. Worth remembering at this point that, once, black cab drivers put ostlers out of work.
It is clear that the direction of travel, so to speak, is already ordained. The way forward is in the shape of a car that navigates a dependable way through the road works, closed-off streets and potholes of London, without a driver, with no possibility of road rage. And, from my perspective, it should be welcomed.
What I noticed on my trips through LA was not the absence of a driver, but the absence of anxiety. I could sit back, relax, listen to Steely Dan (well, it was California), and feel that I was a passenger on a journey not just to West Hollywood, but to the future. It was, for want of a better word, an amazing experience.
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