What do Sequoyah Drivers Think about Waymos?
Image Credit: Waymo
Los Angeles is often thought of as the City of Dreams, a gorgeous utopia home to some of the best landmarks, celebrities, and history. On the surface it’s great…wait no, it’s not. Los Angeles’s streets are some of the most congested on the planet, overrun with buses, vans, and a whole lot of cars. And ever since late 2023, the roads of LA have been invaded by a new kind of driver: the Waymo Driver. The Waymo Driver isn’t actually a person; it’s a huge computer on wheels that can navigate the roads of Los Angeles (and a few other cities across the US including San Francisco, CA, Phoenix, AZ, and Austin, TX) all on its own without a driver. It uses a combination of cameras, radar, and LiDAR systems to “see” the world around it. The thought of a car driving on its own without human supervision has brought a lot of controversy to the city, with varying opinions from drivers and residents of LA.
Overall, drivers at Sequoyah had pretty positive opinions on Waymos navigating the streets of LA. Ellis Kopcho ’26 said of Waymos, “I think they’re really cool.” Sam Almo-Milkin ’25 thinks they are “very useful.” Finally, Kenya Gordon ’26 feels safe with them on the roads, but without a ride in a Waymo under Gordon’s belt, he’s unable to give a solid opinion on how he feels about them roaming the streets of Los Angeles. However, each of these drivers had specific concerns and opinions.
First Kopcho, a junior here at Sequoyah, shared his opinions on Waymos roaming the streets of LA. “They’re almost better than almost any human driver I’ve had. And statistically, from what I’ve heard, they are also safer than human drivers.” Kopcho has taken a few rides with Waymo and only noticed a couple of things that it did that seemed weird: “Just little things like it brakes too hard or brakes at nothing in a parking lot.” Kopcho rated his Waymo experience a 9 on a scale of 1 to 10 and said that the car was very cautious and seemed like it had a lot of training because of the way it turned and handled intersections.
Next, Almo-Milkin thinks that Waymos are a great alternative to Uber and other human-driver ride sharing services. “I think that they’re very useful when you don’t want to talk to anyone and when you don’t have a car.” Almo-Milkin also points out the cost of a Waymo compared to an Uber: “I could have taken an Uber, but it would have been more expensive to take the eight minute Uber than it was to take the eight dollar per minute Waymo.” Almo-Milkin also believes that Waymos are perfectly safe. He didn’t necessarily agree with the company’s statement that the Waymo Driver is safer than a human, but noted that “If [they’re] not safer, they’re certainly more predictable … They have one set of training data versus humans, which have as many as there are human drivers.” This brings up an interesting point about the training behind the Waymo Driver and raises the question of whether, in terms of real-world ability, it’s really better than humans.
Finally, Gordon shared that despite his lack of experience with them, he thinks Waymos are perfectly safe, but noted that “they’re very big and bulky.” Gordon also doubts the computer behind Waymos and thinks that Tesla’s Full Self Driving (FSD) is much better at recognizing and improving its mistakes. “With cameras, it’s able to fully learn from its mistakes. LiDAR is only using the measurements of lasers returning to the scanner,” he said. Teslas solely use cameras to power FSD, a very different approach than Waymos, which uses a combination of LiDAR, radar, and cameras to sense the world around it.
In conclusion, Sequoyah student drivers had varying opinions on Waymos, with the majority of those interviewed thinking that the cars are perfectly safe and a reliable mode of transportation.