# Be honest, as a driver, would you ever take a ride in a self-driving vehicle yourself?



## Cape67 (May 17, 2016)

(skip to the poll if you simply want to answer)
For the longest time, the answer to that question would have been 'no' but after my last Uber ride as a pax from my local airport, now I'm not so sure. Typically I am very forgiving because as a former or active driver, we all know how hard this is.

Presently, we all know the quality of drivers has taken a bit of a nosedive, markets continue to be oversaturated and the latest thing, you may have heard, drivers are invading other markets, sometimes hours away. For example, our local airport (RSW) has been overtaken with drivers from Miami, evidenced by a rather large number of Miami-Dade tags parked in the staging lot. And while this is debatably neither here nor there, what happens is you end up with drivers who don't know the local area. They don't have transponders for the local bridges, they don't know landmarks or alternate routes, often swerving across several lanes of traffic trying to follow their GPS, leaving you with an uncomfortable and unsettling transit. And worst of all, they are displacing pings for local drivers.

For this trip, the driver had
-No knowledge of where anything was. There happens to be heavy consturction in my area, I had to guide him turn-by turn instead of simply saying 'head to the Target in North Cape,' which any local driver would certainly be familiar. Despite explaining to the driver that following his GPS would have torn his car apart, the process was tedious and stressful, like trying to direct someone through a city where they themselves have no familiarity with the local roads. *With an automonous vehicle, I wouldn't have had to worry about the 'driver's' proficiency en route.
*
-No charging cable, not a big deal but a personal pet peeve for me. If you're going to pick people up at *any* aiport, you should at the very least have a $6 USB cable. Why? Pax coming off flights often have no way to charge their phone in-flight, and even if their seat DOES have a USB, most don't bother messing around with cables anyway in-flight. Unless they went through TSA with a full charge at their origin, chances are most pax cellphones are depleted, often down the the last 25% or less SOC. Therefore, charging cables are a must-have for airport runs, pickups in particular. *Autonomous vehicles will almost certainly have charging cables as de-facto deployments, I wouldn't have to worry about whether the driver is industrious enough to have one.
*
-No inclination to help with bags. While again, not a big deal, I loaded and unloaded every single person I ever ran to and from the airport, even if I didn't care for the pax personally, even if I was pretty sure they weren't going to tip. Popping your trunk and sitting there, to me, is shitty service. *Autonomous vehicles will not provide this option, however, I wouldn't have to worry about the tip, an arguably fair trade. Driver A helps with bags, Driver B does not. There is no consistency of service, it's hit or miss, depending on the level of service (mood) the driver happens to feel like providing on any given day. At least I'll know what to expect with an autonomous car.
*
-Windshield wipers smeared dirt, he obviously needed new blades desperately, radically reduces forward visual acuity. The windshield was actually far, far worse *after* using wipers and windshield washer, which appeared to be just water to me. He nearly missed a few turns as a result. At one point he almost drove straight into oncoming traffic due to reduced visibility. *While autonomous vehicles will not be 100% foolproof in accident prevention, driver negligence is something that gets under my skin. If you can't keep your windshield clean during transit, you should not be driving strangers around in a city you are unfamiliar with.

-No transponder for bridge tolls. Honestly, you shouldn't even think about doing this line of work if you can't even be bothered to sign up for a local transponder. Having to stop at a toll booth increases fare for the pax, they aren't stupid. 
*
So after all this, I still gave a good rating because, unless there is something that goes horribly wrong, I won't ding a driver. I never mentioned I was a driver for three years, and did not 'suggest' anything as all I wanted to do was crawl into bed and fall asleep at this point.

However, after unloading my bags, wheeling them into my door and then collapsing onto my bed after a long flight (and horrifyingly bad Uber ride) I thought for awhile, staring at the ceiling fan above, if given the choice, would I have taken an auto-ride?

The answer is, personally yes, I am afraid.

But what about you?


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## HotUberMess (Feb 25, 2018)

Do I have to cancel within 2 minutes? I could ping 30+ an hour.

You wanna talk about having fun, just double park and block one in while you’re staging for your next ping


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## Pax Collector (Feb 18, 2018)

None of the things you mentioned would bother me enough to take an auto-ride. Maybe it's just me....

I would be inclined to try it for the first time though.


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## HotUberMess (Feb 25, 2018)

Damnit the headline has been changed and now my previous joke makes no sense.


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## Pax Collector (Feb 18, 2018)

HotUberMess said:


> Damnit the headline has been changed and now my previous joke makes no sense.


I was trying to figure out what the heck you were trying to say lmao


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## HotUberMess (Feb 25, 2018)

Pax Collector said:


> I was trying to figure out what the heck you were trying to say lmao


Previous headline was: "Would you ping an autonomous car?"


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## Pax Collector (Feb 18, 2018)

HotUberMess said:


> Previous headline was: "Would you ping an autonomous car?"


Thanks for clearing that up


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## HotUberMess (Feb 25, 2018)

Pax Collector said:


> Thanks for clearing that up


Poor OP was trying to make a serious post here LOL

#sortasorry

Hey Cape67 It took me a while but I'm done reading your book and I think there are some things left out of your pros and cons list

•when other riders soil the vehicle there will be no one to clean it. You'll tiredly stumble into an uber with who knows what on the seat

•you know the GPS in the autonomous vehicle won't be any better than your clueless driver's GPS. But instead of talking the driver through the correct route, now you will be forced to endure the rocky construction route. And god forbid the GPS route just end unexpectedly like one of my rides did last week.

•there's no reason why the autonomous car's windshild would be any better than your other driver's. It's not like anyone will be there to wash it.

•why assume the chargers there will work? They'll probably be damaged after two months of constant use.

Personally I don't have a lot of faith in autonomous cars unless they do something drastic to adapt to the problems human riders bring


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## IR12 (Nov 11, 2017)

HotUberMess said:


> Poor OP was trying to make a serious post here LOL
> 
> #sortasorry
> 
> ...


Not a chance of me riding with no human driving.

1. I operate something called a workcell to train robots. It's great when something doesn't work, I send data to engineers, excited to get to work next day to see how they resolved issues & that's really cool.

Otoh, with so many engineers working on different aspects of a workcell, it's clear communications is at root of problems most of the time.

2. GPS -yikes! I'm downtown Berkeley (headed to Bart) on Shattuck & Dwight Way & GPS prompts me to turn left for Golden Gate Bridge which is 2 counties away
....you can't turn left at Shattuck & Dwight way... it's a one-way to the right.

Thankfully I was transporting a senior engineer from Uber who took a pic of intersection and GPS

Toooo many hills & water everywhere in Bay Area for me to chance driverless ride. In SF? Not for all the money in the world


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## Uber's Guber (Oct 22, 2017)

Illiterate 3rd world ants are sneaking over the border to become unskilled Uber drivers.
Thankfully, the 3rd world immigrants who are designing the technology that will operate the self-driving cars are slightly better educated.


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## Fuzzyelvis (Dec 7, 2014)

Maybe in 50 years when it might actually work I will. But I'll be too old to drive then anyway.


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## tohunt4me (Nov 23, 2015)

I w


Cape67 said:


> (skip to the poll if you simply want to answer)
> For the longest time, the answer to that question would have been 'no' but after my last Uber ride as a pax from my local airport, now I'm not so sure. Typically I am very forgiving because as a former or active driver, we all know how hard this is.
> 
> Presently, we all know the quality of drivers has taken a bit of a nosedive, markets continue to be oversaturated and the latest thing, you may have heard, drivers are invading other markets, sometimes hours away. For example, our local airport (RSW) has been overtaken with drivers from Miami, evidenced by a rather large number of Miami-Dade tags parked in the staging lot. And while this is debatably neither here nor there, what happens is you end up with drivers who don't know the local area. They don't have transponders for the local bridges, they don't know landmarks or alternate routes, often swerving across several lanes of traffic trying to follow their GPS, leaving you with an uncomfortable and unsettling transit. And worst of all, they are displacing pings for local drivers.
> ...


I would take 1 just to say i did it.

Just for the experience.

I do take uber & Lyft when i fly or use a rental car to pick up an auction car.

Otherwise i would never have had a reason to use uber or lyft


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## UberLyftFlexWhatever (Nov 23, 2018)

The plan is we won’t have a choice.

Accept SDC or stay in ur home, don’t go to work and have a robot deliver your food.
Until your evicted for nonpayment of mortgage or lease because
you’ve abandoned your job.

Now ask the question: would use a SDC?


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## goneubering (Aug 17, 2017)

Cape67 said:


> (skip to the poll if you simply want to answer)
> For the longest time, the answer to that question would have been 'no' but after my last Uber ride as a pax from my local airport, now I'm not so sure. Typically I am very forgiving because as a former or active driver, we all know how hard this is.
> 
> Presently, we all know the quality of drivers has taken a bit of a nosedive, markets continue to be oversaturated and the latest thing, you may have heard, drivers are invading other markets, sometimes hours away. For example, our local airport (RSW) has been overtaken with drivers from Miami, evidenced by a rather large number of Miami-Dade tags parked in the staging lot. And while this is debatably neither here nor there, what happens is you end up with drivers who don't know the local area. They don't have transponders for the local bridges, they don't know landmarks or alternate routes, often swerving across several lanes of traffic trying to follow their GPS, leaving you with an uncomfortable and unsettling transit. And worst of all, they are displacing pings for local drivers.
> ...


Not right now. Probably never.


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## tohunt4me (Nov 23, 2015)

Whe


Uber's Guber said:


> Illiterate 3rd world ants are sneaking over the border to become unskilled Uber drivers.
> Thankfully, the 3rd world immigrants who are designing the technology that will operate the self-driving cars are slightly better educated.


Where they all dream of going home in 3 years to become Ranchers .


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## iheartuber (Oct 31, 2015)

Once to see what it’s all about? Sure. 

As a replacement to Uber? Nah


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## 404NofFound (Jun 13, 2018)

No. Never. It is the principle! Never, never, never! Even though a robot built my car I still wont do it. The profits from my low paid rides paid for those robots, and that was their intention from the very beginning! NEVER! Lol.


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## Uberfunitis (Oct 21, 2016)

Absolutely I would use a SDC especially if it was offered at a discount. I prefer self checkout over a person at the store as well, If I can cut out human interaction in most business transactions I am very happy.


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