The hate towards Waymo comes from people who are unwilling to accept the future of technology and too scared to even try it. Personally, I love the modern experience of a self-driving car.
When I first heard about Waymo expanding to San José, I was very apprehensive.
Waymo expanded its service to the South Bay in November 2025, but isn’t available everywhere in the city yet, according to a Jan. 7 San José Spotlight article.
I’ve seen videos from San Francisco of Waymo cars getting confused and blocking each other, trapping pedestrians and messing with traffic.
The thought of idiot robot cars clogging up the streets of San José irked me. But let’s face it, San José is full of bumbling drivers as is.
In fact, hit-and-runs make up about 25% of crashes in San José, according to Open Data San José.
As someone from another state, Bay Area drivers astound me. I have seen more people with complete lack of awareness on the road than I thought possible in my two years living here.
That’s part of the reason I don’t understand why people are so against Waymo.
Since locals deal with inconsiderate drivers constantly, Waymo causing traffic once in a while isn’t going to be a large-scale problem.
I think that as Waymo cars advance and make less mistakes, everyone will see how life changing a Waymo ride can be.
A couple weeks ago, I was coming back from a visit home to Colorado.
After a long day of navigating the Denver International Airport, one of America’s busiest airports, and dealing with my flight repeatedly getting delayed, the last thing I wanted to do was make small talk with an Uber driver.
My flight that was supposed to land around 9:30 p.m. and ended up getting into San José Mineta International Airport just before 1 a.m.
My dad, worried about my safety as a young woman alone at that hour, suggested I download the Waymo app.
The app is clean and easy to use with four tabs.
The first to schedule your trip, showing you how far away the nearest car is and asking you where you want to go.
The second tab is titled “My car” where you can adjust the cabin controls and determine how many in-car announcements you want. And the last tabs are for help and to control your account.
I ordered the car when I got off the plane, and by the time I got outside the airport I could see the car waiting for me.
I got a notification that it would wait five minutes before it left.
I like how reliable that is, and the fact that I didn’t have to feel bad for making someone wait.
Usually, I’m rushing through the airport, wanting to catch my Uber ride at just the right moment so that the driver doesn’t have to sit there annoyed.
Without that stress, I calmly walked through the airport, straight to the car where it was waiting with my initials illuminated at the top, and unlocked it using my phone.
When I got in, I was greeted by a control panel and a voice, telling me there were safety cameras and I had to wear my seatbelt.
From the control panel, I could easily log into my Spotify account. So, in my completely exhausted state, I turned on my favorite music, sat back and blissfully let the robot car take me home.
For as much as I enjoyed the lack of awkward small talk, the real relief was I didn’t have to worry about my safety with the driver.
Every time I have taken an Uber, I have had a male driver.
Although most have been perfectly respectable and kind, I am always on high alert. Unfortunately, that is the reality of a woman traveling alone.
I am used to watching the drivers every move, constantly scanning to make sure I am safe.
While it often seems irrational to worry about, the threat of sexual assault or other violence is always on my mind.
In California, there is a proposed ballot initiative that would make ride-hailing companies like Uber legally responsible for sexual misconduct or assault against drivers, according to a New York Times article.
This comes after the New York Times found that Uber received reports of sexual misconduct or assault almost every eight minutes between 2017 and 2022, the article states.
It is because of statistics like this that I never feel truly safe in an Uber.
Of course sexual misconduct is not the only thing to worry about in an Uber. You also have to trust the drivers driving.
While many people are too skeptical to trust a car without a driver, I will take the slight hesitancy of a Waymo car to the unpredictable nature of human drivers.
Just last weekend, my friends and I went to dinner in San Pedro Square Market. On the way there, we took an Uber and on the way back, a Waymo.
The man driving us ended up getting road rage, honking and screaming at the car next to him for reasons unknown to me.
Nothing dangerous came of it, but we were all scared in the back seat, not knowing how far our driver or the other car was going to take things.
When I suggested a Waymo for the way back, my friends were happy to try it out. We climbed in, immediately played our favorite song as loud as we could and let it drive us home with no problems.
So while people stay away from Waymo out of fear of the future, I’ll take a joy-filled, predictable ride home over a stranger’s road rage or constantly needing to stay vigilant any day.
