Good morning. It's Friday, March 15th. I'm Rachel Uranga and I'm reporting from the passenger seat of a self-driving car. Here's what you need to start your day:
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From the passenger seat I saw a taxi that could be embarrassing and devoid of manners
Robotaxis doesn't listen to drivers in the back seat. These self-driving cars don't care if you feel uncomfortable near a potential crime scene. They certainly didn't know that driving to the tents on Skid Row was not only rude, but potentially offensive to anyone who was there.
They are also tone deaf, as I learned during my first ride in a robotaxi with my colleague and photographer Allen J. Chapin. Buckle up, LOS ANGELES — Transportation history was made Thursday when a new service, “Waymo One,” began offering rides in a wide area from downtown to Santa Monica.
“Where the future was once unimaginable, autonomous driving is now a real way of transportation for tens of thousands of people every week,” Waymo CEO Tekedra Mawakana announced this week at SXSW.
Riding downtown in the white Jaguar with its black rotating dome and battery of sensors, cameras and microphones, I wasn't sure what to expect. But I was curious to see how the robot performed as a driver in Los Angeles.
A man ran alongside the self-driving car and pointed it at a wide-eyed young boy, and quite a few bystanders stood in awe as they stared at the empty front seats and the moving steering wheel.
Ride in Waymo
Waymo One carries people across 64 square miles of the region. Right now, ride-hailing is free for those on the 50,000-person waiting list, but Waymo said it will start charging in the coming weeks as it opens the service to everyone.
More than a decade in the making, Waymo, owned by Alphabet, Google's parent company, is unleashing its wheeled robots at the center of car culture with a machine devoid of obvious human emotions like road rage and passenger manners.
It didn't matter that the driver of the Chevy Suburban pulled up next to us and tried to swerve into the lane, popped in front of the auto-taxi and suddenly stopped. The robo-taxi swerved away, slowed down and kept going with my heart rate accelerating.
It didn't matter to her that she dropped us off in front of the tents on Skid Row, where humans are careful because they have to expect the unexpected. You automatically told the driverless car to turn away. He didn't listen.
It didn't matter that we stopped near a possible crime scene, where a group of young boys on bikes were telling officers that a man nearby had pulled a gun on them. I scanned the back seat and surrounding area to see where I could step out if the situation took a turn for the worse.
But that's part of the point. Bots are not as distracted as text message drivers. Robots don't get angry. They are not sexual predators, as some taxi drivers have been accused of. Their movements are based on artificial intelligence, which is not surprising until you want a human response.
The company won't say how big the fleet is in Los Angeles, but it's fewer than 50 vehicles in a county with more than 6 million registered vehicles. It is taking a cautious approach to the area, moving slowly while trying to tweak and improve the product. No highway driving – for now.
Waymo gained some early supporters by promising to expand access for people with disabilities — including those with epilepsy who cannot drive and may face insecurity about using traditional public transportation or ride-sharing. Leaders of the group Santa Monica Families for Safe Streets said the vehicles “set new expectations for the respect and patience that all drivers should have.”
Policymakers in Los Angeles and elsewhere were on the defensive. In San Francisco and the Phoenix area where it already operates, cars have been responsible for traffic jams, hitting a cyclist, and even given rise to protest groups trying to throw objects at cars.
“I think it's a mistake to allow vehicles on our roads that are as unreliable as local Wi-Fi,” said Los Angeles City Councilman Hugo Soto Martinez, who supports legislation in Sacramento that would give cities greater control over robotaxis. . It's one of several proposed bills that try to rein in the technology.
Are robotaxis safe?
So far, only Waymo has been approved by regulators to provide taxi service in Los Angeles, but more self-driving cars are sure to come.
As of last month, the California Department of Motor Vehicles had issued a permit to 38 companies to test self-driving vehicles using a backup safety driver. Six companies can test self-driving vehicles and three manufacturers have been allowed to deploy self-driving vehicles.
For its part, Waymo says its cars are much less likely to crash than humans. In a study released last year, Waymo found that its crash rate was 85% lower than that of humans.
However, as one expert pointed out, the information was limited. Waymo based its findings on data collected from a total of 7.1 million miles — 1.76 million in San Francisco and 5.34 million in the Phoenix area.
Fatalities on U.S. public roads occur about once every 100 million miles, making the data useless for making any meaningful comparisons, said Philip Koopman, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University and an expert on self-driving car safety.
Koopman likened their conclusions to calling a race a marathon before it starts.
So far, it's still early in this race. The trip I took showed how ignorant we are about these cars and the feelings they can arouse in people. Robots do not experience fear or anxiety. But at least for us drivers, these feelings are useful because they tell us to stay out of the way, avoid the scene, and be alert — even if there's nothing ahead of the car or danger that can be picked up by the sensors.
Read more about Rachel's story here: Waymo launches robo-taxi service in Los Angeles, but no freeway driving — for now
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Today's great photo is from Times photographer Genaro Molina on the day the printing presses at the Los Angeles Times' Olympic plant stopped working. The March 11 edition of The Times' print edition was the last at the Los Angeles plant. Beginning with the March 12 edition, the paper will be printed in Riverside by the Southern California Newspaper Group.
Have a great day from the Essential California team
Rachel Uranga, Reporter
Kevinisha Walker, multi-platform editor
Stephanie Chavez, deputy editor of Metro
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