Hands off the wheel

At 7 am on a chilly morning in downtown San Francisco, a white Jaguar arrived to take me to meet a fund manager 30 kilometres away. The Jaguar had an unmistakable bulb-like pod—a whirring, spinning, sensor—mounted on its roof, unlike any other car you would see on the street. I tapped 'unlock' on the Waymo app, and sat next to the 'driver’s’ seat. Is it still the driver’s seat when there is no actual driver? 

I had made the ultimate sacrifice—waking up half an hour early, bleary-eyed with a runny nose—for an hour-long, peaceful autonomous ride. Waymo, the self-driving service, avoids highways, doubling the travel time compared to a normal cab. And this is America: expecting efficient public transit is as ludicrous as expecting affordable healthcare.