A Montanan’s Perspective on Seeing Waymo’s Driverless Cars in Action

We have been hearing about autonomous cars for a while now. For me, they have always seemed like something far off in the future, much like flying cars. Some Tesla vehicles have 'self-driving' modes and it can be surprising as a passenger to have the car drive itself, but at least a driver remains in the vehicle. It's an entirely different thing when you see a car pull up, pick passengers up and drive away with no one in the driver's seat.

Recently I took a trip to California, to visit family, and we spent some time in the big city of San Francisco. Every time I visit there it's an eye-opening experience. It blows me away how many cars on the roads and how many drivers just make up their own rules as they go. As we were walking around I spotted a vehicle that I initially thought was one of the Google vehicles mapping the area because of all the cameras and sensors. But no, it was an autonomous vehicle picking up and dropping off customers.

via GIPHY

The company is called Waymo and watching the cars in use is something that I don't know if I will ever get used to seeing. When I saw the vehicle pull up and there was no one behind the wheel, I felt like I was in a sci-fi movie. I had way more questions than answers.

The cars themselves are Jaguars and they looked nice. Did I ride in one? Absolutely not. Was I freaked out over the prospect of being a passenger in one? Yes. Does this make me officially an old man? Yes.

While I didn’t ride in one, seeing these autonomous cars in action made me realize that the future is no longer something far off—it’s happening now. It’s both exciting and unsettling to think about how this technology might reshape our lives here in Montana. As I left San Francisco, I couldn’t help but wonder: will there come a day when we trust machines more than ourselves on the road? For now, though, I think I’ll stick to being in the driver’s seat on Montana's roads—at least until the future feels a little less like science fiction. You can check out some pics of the Waymo cars below.