[AutonomousVehicles] : [Tech-VI] My first ride in a self-driving car

Wed Nov 19 00:52:13 UTC 2025

Not at this time.  Detroit however is supposed to be getting Wamo, and once it does, I might be able to report since I do head up that way every so often from Cincinnati.

Haylie

From: AutonomousVehicles <autonomousvehicles-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Peter Donahue via AutonomousVehicles
Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2025 5:41 PM
To: 'autonomous Vehicles Discussion' <autonomousvehicles at nfbnet.org>
Cc: pmdonahue2 at gmail.com
Subject: Re: [AutonomousVehicles] : [Tech-VI] My first ride in a self-driving car

Hello Haylie,

                Do you live in a city where ARS, (Autonomous Rideshare) is available? With ARS available in Austin and coming to Dallas next year perhaps it will be a matter of time before ARS arrives in the Alamo City. That will be a great day. Thanks for the heads-up about Nashville.

Peter Donahue

From: AutonomousVehicles <autonomousvehicles-bounces at nfbnet.org <mailto:autonomousvehicles-bounces at nfbnet.org> > On Behalf Of Haylie Gallacher via AutonomousVehicles
Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2025 4:02 PM
To: 'autonomous Vehicles Discussion' <autonomousvehicless at nfbnet.org <mailto:autonomousvehicless at nfbnet.org> >
Cc: Haylie Gallacher <haylieg2780 at gmail.com <mailto:haylieg2780 at gmail.com> >
Subject: Re: [AutonomousVehicles] : [Tech-VI] My first ride in a self-driving car

Just an FYI.  Lyft will also have a partnership with Wamo in 2026.  They are starting in Nashville.  Link is below.

https://investor.lyft.com/news-and-events/news/news-details/2025/Lyft-and-Waymo-Launch-Partnership-to-Expand-Autonomous-Mobility-to-Nashville/default.aspx

Haylie

From: AutonomousVehicles <autonomousvehicles-bounces at nfbnet.org <mailto:autonomousvehicles-bounces at nfbnet.org> > On Behalf Of Peter Donahue via AutonomousVehicles
Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2025 4:16 PM
To: autonomousvehicles at nfbnet.org <mailto:autonomousvehicles at nfbnet.org> 
Cc: pmdonahue2 at gmail.com <mailto:pmdonahue2 at gmail.com> 
Subject: [AutonomousVehicles] : [Tech-VI] My first ride in a self-driving car

Good afternoon everyone,

Here is an example of what I hope to see more of on this list in addition to the posts Cornelius puts up here regularly. All of this information is great but realWorld experiences of blind AV passengers will make this list even better. The story below gives us information as to what to expect from the Uber/Wamo partnership when using Autonomous Vehicles in Austin.

Peter Donahue who wants to see autonomous rideshare (ARS) services come to San Antonio.

From: tech-vi at groups.io <mailto:tech-vi at groups.io>  <tech-vi at groups.io <mailto:tech-vi at groups.io> > On Behalf Of David Goldfield via groups.io
Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2025 12:49 AM
To: stv <tech-vi at groups.io <mailto:tech-vi at groups.io> >
Subject: [Tech-VI] My first ride in a self-driving car

Even Grounds - Sunday, November 16, 2025 at 10:28 AM

My first ride in a self-driving car

For the last three years I’ve been trying to figure out how to get into a self-driving car. Each time I was in a city, it was either cancelled for the time being, the app didn’t work, etc. I even thought about flying across the country to try it out, but there was always a reason why it didn’t happen. Until recently, when I attended the Blind Travel Summit in Austin where I could set Uber to accept autonomous vehicles, and I got it for the second time.

At this point, this shouldn’t be news, and originally I didn’t even consider writing about it, many people did already, and my experience is no longer a novelty. Except, I found a few issues that could be interesting, especially as it is integrated with Uber.

<@–more–>

In most cities where Waymo is available, one has to use the Waymo app, which is made quite accessible, and there are many instructions and documentations on how to use it before you would actually call a car.

Not so with Uber. Under the settings, you have to check that you are willing to accept autonomous vehicles. Unfortunately, it is only possible once you are in Austin inside the region where these cars are available, so I was not able to explore the settings before the trip, if there were any. But this was all. I checked the box, and waited patiently until the system throws a self-driving car at me.

It happened on the first morning in Austin when we called an Uber from the hotel to the School for the Blind where the conference took place, which was about a 20 minutes ride. After I scheduled the trip, I got a message that an autonomous vehicle was assigned to me and if I wanted to accept it. I did not take notes so I don’t have the exact wording and messages. So, I accepted it. Then another message came up, if I would like to use bluetooth to automatically unlock the car when it is nearby. I thought it was a good idea at the time, so I set it. In a few minutes I received a notice that my car was nearby. At this point, I couldn’t quickly figure out where, since I didn’t have an opportunity to understand how the system works until I actually had to use in real life, I was worried that I will miss my ride. I did ask my daughter who traveled with me to help me understand the screen, but let me do the interaction myself so I better understand how it works.

The car was nearby, it was an easy walk. However, as I later found out, since I set to open the car using Bluetooth, one accessibility option wasn’t available to me that is to press a button to hunk the car’s horn so I can hear in which direction to go. Now I am not sure how to cancel this option. Fortunately my daughter found the car for us.

The rest was the experience that you probably read a lot about or have watched countless videos detailing it, you get in, there is no driver and the car gets moving when the belt is on and you press the button that you are ready. But it was still very cool. It was the experience of a lifetime.

I have a friend, who is also blind and we grew up together. During the summers, we spent countless nights, to talk about an automatic car we will have when we grow up that can take us everywhere and we don’t have to drive. Now I find it interesting that amongst all unrealistic options at the time, we fantasized about a self-driving car, and not being able to see instead. But it was our dream for many years, and I just thought about it in the car, and I sent my friend a voice message from the car telling him that our dream has come true in some way and that I am experiencing it.

It is one thing to read about it, or hear other people’s stories and to be there and know that it is reality, and we are not far from the day when it doesn’t have to be a local Uber ride, but it could be our car in our garage that can take us anywhere.

Once we arrived, we got the announcement, and learned that we were dropped off at the other side of the street. From the accessibility point of view it wasn’t the best thing, of course one can figure out how to cross the street downtown in a big city, but it actually proved to be more complicated than I thought. With my daughter’s help, we found out that we had to walk down two blocks to find an intersection with a traffic light to cross this wide street, maybe it could have been faster going the other direction. But regardless, even if I could have found it myself using GPS apps, if I were to make the experience more accessible, I would have tried to find an alternative to be dropped off at the same side, or even near the building where I don’t have to cross a major highway, which was possible when we got dropped off by a human driver the previous day.

Overall, the experience was quite usable, mostly accessible, and definitely something I would use again. However, I wish they allowed using the Waymo app in Austin, or Uber put more effort into making the experience more friendly for visually impaired users, because it is mostly lacking on the digital side, they already solved the self-driving problem.

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https://evengrounds.com/my-first-ride-in-a-self-driving-car/

David Goldfield,

Blindness Assistive Technology Specialist

If you need help using your assistive technology learn about my training services by visiting

WWW.ScreenReaderTraining.com <http://www.screenreadertraining.com/> 

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