Waymos of Loving Grace

I met a tourist visiting San Francisco for the first time recently, and when asking about their impressions of driving in the city they said “there are a lot of stop signs”. I never really paused to think about whether this is a uniquely SF thing, or just somehow more pronounced in SF.

In any case, what you do notice in SF is the lack of a stop sign. Drivers here¹ really love not stopping when they’ve got the chance, probably because, y’know, it’s the one intersection out of a hundred without a stop sign. They also like not stopping if you’re standing at the corner waiting. Or standing at the corner holding a baby and waiting. I never do this with my child, but when the stroller is empty it’s also a fun lack-in-humanity test to meekly inch the stroller out into the road to see if you can get a stop. Shockingly rare! Even if there are cars piling up at the next block and the person is going to have to stop directly at the other side of the intersection… Stop? Nah, no stop sign!

But you know who does stop? Fucking Waymos, every time. And I love ’em for it! Seriously, I found myself throwing an awkward, appreciative hand gesture up and mouthing “thank you!” to a driverless car.

It’s great advertising. I can’t help but think every pedestrian standing at one of the stop sign-less intersections of SF with their please-stop-so-I-can-cross face on will come to notice that it’s often the Waymo, a machine of loving grace², that stops and that they kind of love them for it.