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Comment by fragmede | Hacker News Reader

After two of my (women) friends were assaulted by Uber/Lyft drivers, a weird smell is the least of my fears. If I'm sending someone on a ride late a night, Waymo's lack of driver is a huge reason to prefer them over Uber/Lyft. But only if the destination is in a safe neighborhood. A human driver's going to be able to make a better assessment of if it's safe to let someone off somewhere, vs Waymos will randomly drop you off blocks away from your destination.

As far as humans suck at driving, it's not that they suck on average, but that the ones who do suck at it don't always have a sticker saying that they suck.

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It is also that they suck on average.

Also, the really fantastic ones will be excellent for years and years, and then one day they're slightly sleepy.

Or get a text and get distracted at just the wrong time

These days to qualify as excellent you need good phone discipline.

Eg, turn off the phone or turn off notifications, even vibrations. Or at least make a strict rule to ignore it while moving and only look while fully stopped, eg at a stoplight although that's just decent driver grade not excellent driver, because of the temptation the notification will present each time.

A great driver also reviews the route for a couple of minutes before leaving in order to reduce reliance on GPS-- you still use GPS but because it's not the first time you've seen the material, already know the shape of the route, and just need reminders to encourage you you're on the right track, the GPS will genuinely steal far less attention. The two minutes will be well spent, and may save lots of time, because it vastly reduces the likelihood of wrong turns.

I had to give up on the smart watch because being able to turn your wrist and read a text is a really bad feature when driving, and I didn't trust myself with it.

And that one day they will take the taxi.

Averages don't work for risk evaluation.

Except for when they don't.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humboldt_Broncos_bus_crash

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