Waymo questions than answers

The Waymo driverless taxis are coming to Portland. The left wingers of local politics are acting like they can stop it, but of course, they can't, because enough of the rest of them are quietly fine with it. Just as the tech boys killed the cab companies with Uber, now they're killing Uber with robot cars. The only jobs that matter, it seems, are those of the overlords in the Bay Area. 

They say the AI cars are safer than if they were driven by humans, but there are horror stories. And when somebody's injured or killed by a tech malfunction or a design flaw, it always seems more tragic and frightening than if the harm were caused by human error.

One thing's for sure, and that's that these cars are going to cause havoc on many of the painfully narrow streets in the inner part of the east side of Portland. On countless residential blocks, there's really only room for a single car to be traveling comfortably. To pass a vehicle going in the opposite direction is difficult if not impossible. And so the locals learn a special dance, in which you wait at the intersection for the other person to come through toward you, or if it's too late for that, you scooch over into a gap in the parked cars caused by a driveway or fire hydrant, to allow the two of you to squeeze by each other. 

I sincerely doubt that the Waymo cars are going to handle it well. They'll probanly just stop right in front of you and make you back all the way up to the last cross street. Even with humans in both cars, that happens sometimes.

Good luck passing an oncoming Waymo on this block:

Or this one:

Or hundreds of other blocks just waiting for a standoff.

Of course, other problems are reported as well. If someone leaves a door open on one of these cars, it simply freezes. And the same is true during a power outage; the vehicle just stops in its tracks and blocks the way. But even if you're willing to overlook those scenarios, the skinny side streets are going to be an everyday circus.

And don't expect the bureaucrats to help. Given the pinheads we have in the city "transportation" bureau, the solution will probably be to eliminate the parking spaces. As far as City Hall is concerned, you really shouldn't have a car to begin with.

Oh well, technology marches on. It's quite a time to be alive.