Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

Waymo should add a thin layer of "assertiveness" for actual deadlock that their self-driving architecture could cause.

While in Austin, I was in a Waymo that blocked 3 lanes of incoming traffic while attempting to merge into a lane going into the opposite direction. It was a super unorthodox move, but none of the drivers (even while stopped for a red light) would let the Waymo* merge into their lane.

Thank God for the tinted windows, people were pulling their phones out to record (rightly so). It felt like I was responsible for holding up a major portion of Austin 5 pm traffic on a Friday.

Wish it just asserted itself ever-so-slightly to get itself out.

I think we're going to see more examples of this as Waymo's popularity grows. Basically human drivers taking advantage of Waymo's far more passive driving style. Maybe some rules of the road will have to change, or the Waymos will get dedicated lanes to solve this problem.

Imagine if we had dedicated lanes for giant Waymos, that could hold dozens of people. The future of transport.