Hello,
I am excited to share my experience in a self driving car. I live in Arizona, close to Phoenix and there are a lot of self driving cars here. I have seen them around. While I was driving, I would look over and see and empty drivers seat. What? It was driving on its own. Fascinating.
When my friend Sara came to visit and wanted to go in one I said yes!
The company we used is called Waymo and the car is a very nice Jaguar. Waymo operates in certain locations so we had to drive to a pick up spot. She reserved the car and we went to Target. :)
Here is a video of our drive to Target.
While it was very strange to see the wheel turn and the car move with no one in the front seat I felt completely safe.
The car talked to us and welcomed us into the car, called Sara by name (nice touch).
The screen for the backseat was really nice, giving you a feel of the traffic around you. It kinda looked like Frogger, if you are old enough to remember that Atari game. :)
We made it to Target. While I did feel completely safe driving Waymo still has to iron out the kinks of the drop off and pick up. The road in front of Target was two lanes. It stayed in the lane of traffic for a very long time blocking the cars behind it.
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Even worse was the pick up. Here is a video. You can see the cars that it was blocking as it waited for us in the lane used for traffic.
Here is one more video of the last part of the adventure.
Would I do it again. YES! I have my own car and don't have much need for one, and because Waymo doesn't service my neighborhood I am not sure when I will use it again. I will though and look forward to it. Maybe in March when Sara comes back to visit.
So fun that self driving cars are now a reality!
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