A spin around town
This week I am on the Eastern side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California, one of my favourite places on the globe. We are spending several days hiking and driving in and around Death Valley National Park. We also visited Manzanar National Historic Site, the “War Relocation Center” as it was called during the period it was used as an internment camp for Japanese-Americans between 1942 and 1945. Of that visit, more next week.
Meantime, last week we spent a delightful few days with friends and my son and his fiancé in San Francisco. Miles and Srujani wanted to treat us to experiences we don’t usually have when we are there, and since I grew up there, they work very hard to surprise us. This trip was no exception.
On our second day of adventuring, we met for lunch at a new (to us) Indian restaurant, walked to the art gallery where Srujani is exhibiting her art, and then walked along further to play mini golf in a large warehouse converted to a clever and witty 18-hole mini golf course, complete with food and drinks. We had a riotous time playing golf as the score fluctuated wildly depending on our skill levels at the different holes.
Finally it was time to head home and this was the most exciting part: they scheduled us all to take a Waymo back to our respective houses. For those who do not live in a few select cities in the US, Waymo cars are the first self-driving cars licensed to drive as taxis in the US. After many fits and starts, they are now everywhere on the streets of San Francisco. My thoughtful son organised the ride starting out with all four of us in the car so we newbies could get used to it, and ask ‘the kids’ lots of questions. After dropping them off, the car continued on with just me and Pete sitting quietly in the back seat.
I was of course very nervous about this: I mean—there is no driver!!! But after just a few moments, I realised what a safe and calm experience of driving it really was. Just the day before we had taken a ride-share service home, and while the driver was fine, I wasn’t always sure about his choices. But after sitting in the Waymo car for only a few minutes, it was not only a very smooth ride, but I was able to observe it make smart and safe choices. Every single time.
We realised it actually had ALL the information it needed, ALL the time since it has cameras fully covering every angle. It’s processor can combine all the inputs much faster than a human can. For instance, it didn’t need to turn it’s head to check the blind spot before swivelling back around and being clear it was safe to move into another lane. The cameras provide all that information instantaneously.
Like all electric cars, it has a dashboard screen showing the surrounding traffic, pedestrians, and other objects, still and moving. A Waymo car has 2 screens so the passengers in the back seat can also see what is going on (you can see that screen in the first photo above). And while watching the screen, you can see what some of the parameters the car is weighing before deciding what to do; for instance, how long will it wait behind a car trying to turn left across traffic? In a less tricky movement, here it is turning right at a corner:
There are loads of safety features including the fact that it doesn’t start up until everyone has their seat belts on and your identity and the destination is confirmed. It alerts you about 30 seconds before you arrive at your destination to remember your phone and wallet and, in our case, it kept the doors locked until a passing car on the street-side was safely out of the way.
We were like giddy schoolchildren after finishing our ride, commenting on how nice it is to ride in the Jaguar, and that you can pick your own type of music for the ride. I insisted on calm spa-like music to help me relax, obviously!
Since my kids were coming over to our friend’s house soon for dinner, I found a place for pizza and salads to be delivered, got to the end of the online form, looked for my wallet to pay the bill and, um, my wallet was nowhere to be found. There was only one small bag I was carrying all day so I didn’t have to look far. It was definitely gone. Argh!
As Pete finished the order, I thought back to all the places I had used my wallet and we had been that day. I had used a card in my wallet to ride the trams, so I definitely had the wallet after that. Then we went to the restaurant for lunch, the art gallery, the mini-golf, the ride home and everywhere we walked in-between. My heart sank; it could be so many places or dropped out of my small bag anywhere we walked. Everyone pitched in and called all the places and either left messages, learned it wasn’t there, or they said they would call back after checking. I got online and managed to freeze the cards that I could. But honestly, I felt sick. This was the beginning of a three week vacation and I had just royally screwed up.
I will spare you all the details and let you know there was a very happy ending! By 9 pm the next night (after also retracing our steps again the next day), the Waymo company got back in touch with my son saying they had found my wallet in the car. Fortunately no one had gotten in the car after us, and they had sent the car back ‘home’ after Miles contacted them so a human could check for my wallet. And there it was.
So, even though I was already a fan of this self-driving car, I am now indebted to them for making it so easy and safe for me to lose and retrieve my wallet. Next time I will not only LISTEN to the car’s reminder to check for my wallet and phone before I leave the car, I will actually DO it. 🤷♀️
Thank you for reading my silly tale of forgetfulness. Have you ever lost your wallet on your holiday? How did you remedy the situation?
Hope you are all well, enjoying the changing of seasons and—at least here in the northern hemisphere—the increasing light.
More from the road next week!
xoxo Sabrina
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I envy your time in Death Valley (and great photograph of the eastern Sierra range front)! Your description of the Waymo car was interesting. I admire your open-mindedness to accept that experience, and then—based on it—even to applaud the robot vehicle.
There is something in my personality that will always rebel against machines making decisions for me, especially when a programmed machine such as a car overrides a clear decision that I have made as a sentient human. The Wayco car was not overriding your decisions, only carrying you passively to your chosen destination, so my curmudgeonly reservations are probably not applicable there. In our fast-becoming science fiction world, I recoil from the rise of the robot (and don't even "get me started" on the topic of using AI to plagiarize writing...!).
Thanks for your piece!
I loved the picture of the eastern side of the Sierras. My phone screen is now covered in drool. I admire your courage and open-mindedness to get in the car and enjoy it. Most of all, I loved that Miles and Srujani organized a creative, thoughtful, and unusual series of activities for you. Wow, talk about the tides turning! That was so thoughtful of them. You must have been gliding along on that alone, never mind the car.
Can’t wait for next week about a sad, relevant, and disturbing topic, the concentration camps for the Japanese.