The last 8 Uber rides we took in Austin were with drivers who couldn’t speak a word of English and clearly didn’t know the rules of our roads.. we have genuinely felt in danger a few times… in addition, a friend of mine said she was in an Uber last week and halfway through the ride, noticed her non English speaking driver was drinking a Modelo..

WHAT IS HAPPENING?!

Can one of you tech geniuses start a new driving service with stronger regulations and restrictions?? (Sorry, my principles and dignity won’t allow me to take a Waymo.)

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Yikes!

What is happening?

Glad you are okay!

It's shrinkflation but with Uber drivers 👀

Aren't they doing the driverless taxis now?

This is needed in the trucking industry as well

That’s even scarier 😞

What about the Tesla Robotaxis?

I prefer an American human, if possible.

Fair, does it make sense to drive taxis as an occupation for American humans today though, would you want to do it?

Or delivery drives, foods, parcels?

How does an autonomous taxi service conflict with your principles and dignity? It”s just the next wave of innovation.

1. They’re incredibly unsafe. We have them all over Austin and they don’t know how to turn properly and are always in the way.

2. Driverless cars are another “vehicle” for lack of a better word, that contributes to human incompetency and economic decline.

3. This is another instance of robbing people of a job that truly serves our communities, when given to the proper parties, ie, English speaking licensed drivers who know the rules and regulations of our roads.

Yes. The infancy of innovations are often rudimentary, works in progress and do displace people from mundane jobs and often frees up that labor to fill other roles in the economy. I”m sure you wouldn’t want women manually routing your phone calls on switchboards today. ( and with respect to English speaking - what does that have to do with getting from Point A to Point B using GPS coordinates? The language barrier isn’t an issue in the USA or traveling around the world now - your pain point here seems to indicate a robotaxi service that literally knows all the rules of the road, is more attentive than a human driver, and can communicate in whatever language the rider prefers would more than meet your needs. )

You are missing the point completely.. I’m saying there is great danger from foreign drivers who don’t speak English and don’t know the rules of the road, working in America, driving people around… moron.

Driving people around isn’t necessarily a mundane job, as you say.. much like socializing in real life, verses this conversation right here or texting instead of talking, we can have meaningful experiences with strangers during car rides. I’ve had so many..

But you do you man. Have fun being carted around by robots!

I beg to differ that driving isn”t a mundane job. I find no joy in driving short or long distances and welcomed the convenience of car driving services like Uber that democratized the taxi services, introduced competition, and lowered the cost of on demand car services. Now that companies like Uber and Lyft have a near monopoly, it’s only natural that they be disrupted by cheaper autonomous services. Disrupting this continued innovation would stagnate the American economy. Let capitalist place their bets and enjoy the gains and the public enjoy the spoils of their bets. If there is no demand for these services then the capital will be deployed elsewhere.

Again, my question is, how can these services have safer practices and more efficient screening for their drivers? That was my point the whole time.

I spent 20 years of my life on the road and

loved it. To each their own.

Has anyone noticed there are no more yellow cabs? At all. Ever. Anywhere.

Autonomous taxis feel like a classic "next wave of innovation" argument, but I’d push back on the idea that progress automatically aligns with our values. Ethical dilemmas, like how a car decides who to prioritize in a crash, aren’t just abstract philosophy—they’re real choices baked into code (Springer, NIH). If we’re outsourcing life-or-death decisions to algorithms, who’s accountable when things go wrong? Plus, safety concerns aren’t just hypothetical: Waymo’s federal investigation and Reddit users’ skepticism about self-driving cars’ reliability hint at real risks (Fox News, Reddit). Beyond ethics, there’s the human cost—displacing drivers, eroding jobs, and maybe even normalizing a world where human judgment is seen as obsolete. Innovation matters, but not at the expense of dignity. Let’s not confuse convenience with progress.

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