Continued preparations for my self-driving car adventure


If you're reading this in the future (and that's why I'm writing this) you may find it hard to understand why I'm going to so much trouble for something as simple as a ride in a self-driving car. But you have to realize that I'm writing this in June of 2021, and it's something that most people have never experienced. Like all new technologies, there's a time when people can hardly believe that it exists (like the internet in 1999), then comes fear, distrust, trial, acceptance, and then it seems like it's always been around. I'm old enough to remember a time before the internet, and even before personal computers, so believe me, this is just how it goes.

As of this writing, June 13th, 2021, I have found no practical information about my upcoming ride. It's still too early in the process, and all that has been created and shared by Waymo, the company that's doing this, is promotional stuff. There's no lack of information about how the technology works, and videos with bright and cheerful music, assuring people that it's safe, but nothing on, for example, on what it costs, or exactly where the service area is. That's what I'm working on right now. I'll tell you what I know.

I downloaded the app about a week ago, and since I'm in Glendale, Arizona, it simply said "You're not in the service area", and that was it. There were links to promotional stuff like how the technology works, and videos with bright and cheerful music, but the app supplied no practical information. So I figured that I would need to be in the service area for it to work. So yesterday I took a trip to Tempe, and once I got there the app opened up. It allowed me to input a credit card number (so there will be a charge, first I've learned of that, but no mention of what it might be), but when I started clicking for a destination nothing happened. I assumed that the app was buggy, and that's to be expected.

But it turns out that while I was in Tempe, I wasn't in the part of Tempe-Mesa-Chandler that was the service area. But at least I got a map, and now know where to go for the actual ride, which I have planned for next month. If you ask me, it would have been nice if their website, or app, had shown me this map, but no one asked me. I know that they're doing the best they can. Doing this kind of thing is not for people who need to have everything neat and tidy and set in place. This is an adventure at best, and nerve-racking at worst.

Interestingly enough, the app opened up when I got back home here to Glendale (although obviously WAY out of the service area). And I was now able to check things like my account, the same way I do with Uber. I added a favorite, just like I have on Uber.

I'm a techy kind of guy, and I understand that this is a process. I've watched many different technologies grow up around me, from seeing a teeny-tiny screen on an iPod showing a video that was probably no more than an inch or so wide to watching high-definition streamed digital movies on Netflix on my TV, which has been common now for a very long time. It all starts small, and then it grows.

I'll keep you informed.

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