To drive a black cab in London, one must pass “The Knowledge”. Over 25,000 street names, 20,000 points of interest and an immaculate ability to get to a destination through useless tourist descriptions are all required to be worthy of driving people around the 11 million resident city.

Growing up in England, taking a black cab was legitimately mind blowing. It was as if drivers were born with a perfect map of the city, and could visualize the fastest route in their minds at all times. These people were hailed as the highest skilled drivers in the world, and for good reason.

Then came Google Maps. One addition to the App Store created a redundancy case for over twenty thousand drivers. Anyone, or at least anyone with a license, could now drive a taxi. This of course led to the creation of uber, which in all honesty is a great service – no qualms there.

The reason I took to blogging today was my recent experience with the newest toy on the bock – the Waymo. Technology has taken a next step, and this time came in the form of self driving cars. The bar to become a taxi driver vanished, and now the redundancy of any person driving is a real possibility. This is the future of transport.

Or, is it? Bottom line? I hope not.

I downloaded the Waymo app when any sane person would, at 2am on the way back from a bar when the best thing I could think of was teleporting to my bed. 10 seconds to download, another 20 to make an account, and bang – I had a car on the way. As friends and other familiar faces emerged from the bar, one person became 5, and we all patiently awaited our vessel home.

5 minutes later, there it was, an electric white vehicle flashing my name waiting to pick up passengers. We all got in, buckled up and off we were, or so we thought. 5 people in a car seating 5 person sounds reasonable, but not to Waymo inc. apparently. The car slowly pulls over before a minute on the road is even reached.

I hear a sixth voice in the cab, a direct phone line to customer HQ, chewing me out for having 5 people in.. wait for it, a fiver person cab. First hurdle of the night. Whatever, two kind volunteers elect to get an uber home separately, and off we were again.

Nope.

For the next 10 minutes, and much to our dismay, this Waymo proceeds to pull over 6 times, phoning support each time, only for us to repeatedly explain that we are still here, and still waiting to go home, and there is no issue. Bear in mind this journey should have been no more than 10 minutes, and we were now at 15 only 200 yards from the beginning spot.

I’ll spare the rest of the journey, but long story short it took 40 minutes. Definitely not ordering Waymo for a while. Well, maybe.

Whilst this experience was brain numbingly frustrating, I do have some understanding. The product is new, going through growing pains, and needs to abide by strict rules as people remain uneasy about fully autonomous services, particularly driving. I see a future for these cabs, but it will be a while before they become as efficient as a 5 year trained driver, with more street savvyness and intuitive understanding of navigating a city.

Shoutout Waymo though, next few rides are free supposedly. 2am bar exits might find a use case for that…