When no one is behind the wheel in car-obsessed Los Angeles

Los Angeles has never been for the faint of heart for drivers. A country where most cannot fathom life without wheels, it offers a daily parade of frustration: traffic jams, accidents, construction, road rage, boredom.

Every transplant has a story about learning to adapt.

“You get into the rhythm of matching everyone’s energy,” says Tamara Siemering, 30, an actor who moved from Sacramento a year ago. The difference in car culture here, she said, is enormous.

“It feels very self-centered,” she says. “Everyone says, ‘I have to be somewhere, out of the way.’ There isn’t much cooperative driving; there is a lot of honking at each other and speeding and zooming around.”

Now a whole new type of driver is joining the fray – one that bills itself as measured and unemotional, respectful and obedient. This means that there is no driver at all.

Waymo, a fleet of autonomous taxis already operating in San Francisco and Phoenix, has begun ferrying passengers through a small part of Los Angeles County. The white Jaguar SUVs – notable for their rotating black domes covering an array of cameras and sensors – have been cleared for commercial driving, with free rides available to a select number. It will soon offer a paid service with prices comparable to Uber and Lyft.

Waymo, owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet, bills its autonomous vehicles as “the most experienced drivers in the world.” There is already a list of 50,000 people waiting for a chance to ride one in Los Angeles. For some, the intrigue is the technology. Others are attracted to the idea of ​​avoiding small talk and the pressure to tip.

Still, civic leaders have protested Waymo’s arrival and warned of safety risks, while unions are wary of the impact it could have on jobs in an already saturated market. And many residents aren’t so sure they would trust an empty driver’s seat.

Mrs. Siemering is one of them. She wants to hear more about how robot cars navigate the city’s intense car culture before she gets in one herself.

“It’s a bit vague – I want to wait and see how it plays out,” she said. “I don’t really want to be the test, the guinea pig.” Her own 1996 Ford Taurus was in a fender bender in January. But she plans to stick with the bus or rely on Uber and Lyft’s human drivers to get to her day job as a bartender at a caviar bar in West Hollywood.

Waymo’s footprint will initially be small. With fewer than 50 cars, its territory is limited to about 60 square miles, stretching from Santa Monica to downtown Los Angeles. For the time being, it will not operate at the airport and its cars will not drive on the highways that are such a fixture in the region.

The company recognizes these drawbacks, but wants to think about expanding while serving people who need rides close to home, said Chris Ludwick, Waymo’s director of product management. He hopes nervous drivers will soon discover that there are few experiences that compare to driving a luxury car all alone.

“Having your own space that you can control feels a bit magical,” Mr Ludwick said. “You can put on any music you want, you can change the temperature. It’s your space. You can be what you want to be, do what you want to do.”

He added that safety is at the forefront of the company’s efforts. “We take our driving practices very seriously,” Mr Ludwick said.

Last fall, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass sent a letter to the California Public Utilities Commission emphasizing that autonomous vehicles needed more testing and that local jurisdictions should have more control over them.

She cited numerous problems in San Francisco, including cases in which vehicles ignored yellow emergency tape and warning signs, entered an active fire scene and parked on top of the fire hose, contributed to the death of a person by blocking an ambulance and dragged a pedestrian. 20 feet. Some of the most disturbing incidents involved Cruise, an autonomous vehicle company that was ordered by state regulators in October to halt its taxi service.

But dozens of groups supported Waymo’s expansion into Los Angeles as the utility commission considered its decision this year. Among them were disability rights organizations that argued that autonomous taxis give their constituents the freedom to travel without having to rely on other people.

“This fulfills the dreams of countless blind Americans to have complete autonomy over our transportation, the same as any other citizen who has a driver’s license,” Mark A. Riccobono, president of the National Federation of the Blind, wrote to the committee in February.

Waymo, which began hosting pop-up tours in Los Angeles in October, was approved for a broader rollout earlier this month. It also has plans to offer service in San Mateo County, in Northern California, and in Austin, Texas.

Unions and workers fear the arrival of autonomous vehicles will threaten livelihoods and put further pressure on drivers, who say they are already suffering from inflation, high gas prices and low wages.

“We have to work twice as many hours to make the same income, while we see robots taking over the industry,” said Nicole Moore, president of Rideshare Drivers United, an organization of 20,000 drivers across California.

Many taxi service drivers see the industry moving to computers one day. But some also share a collective grin. Good luck, they say, dealing with the quirks of pick-up and drop-off.

Passengers have been unknowingly pampered by ride-sharing practices that adapt to their needs and circumvent the rules. That means you can stand wherever you want and expect your car to appear. If you are in a hurry, you can request to press the accelerator. And alternative routes can be suggested.

“Waymo goes the speed limit, it doesn’t pick you up at red curbs, fire hydrants or bus zones – they let you walk to the car,” says Sergio Avedian, who drives for Uber in Los Angeles. and contributes to The Rideshare Guy, a website for gig drivers.

“If I have to go to Hollywood at 1 o’clock in the morning, I’ll be double or even triple parked because there’s a million people there,” he said.

Mr. Avedian drove a Waymo car a few weeks ago and was impressed with the ride quality. But he saw how passengers could be irritated by the code that could force them to avoid a construction zone and park two blocks away.

And while Waymo has devoted fans in Phoenix and San Francisco, some worry it’s not a good fit in a city where about 340 people were killed in traffic incidents in 2023. It was the first time in nine years that the number of traffic-related deaths exceeded the number of murders.

“I don’t trust them with something that weighs 4,000 pounds and goes 60 miles per hour,” said Jim Honeycutt, a construction manager who works on the construction of several Los Angeles subway stations.

Mr. Honeycutt, 75, doesn’t buy the idea that software could make better decisions where humans might make mistakes. “Because,” he said, “people invented computers.”