Driving a car is easy. Driving a car with people in it takes real effort.
When you’re in the driver seat, your intent gets immediate feedback. You press the gas, the car moves. You press harder, it accelerates. You shift gears and there’s a small setback you barely notice. Everything makes sense because you’re causing it.
But as a passenger, you don’t know any of this until it’s already happened. By then, you might have motion sickness.
I’ve spent a lot of time in cars I’m not driving. Ubers, friends, family members who all drive at different levels. And I’ve started paying attention to what separates a good ride from a bad one. The answer is simpler than I expected: the best drivers minimize surprise.
Route Selection
There’s more to getting from A …
Driving a car is easy. Driving a car with people in it takes real effort.
When you’re in the driver seat, your intent gets immediate feedback. You press the gas, the car moves. You press harder, it accelerates. You shift gears and there’s a small setback you barely notice. Everything makes sense because you’re causing it.
But as a passenger, you don’t know any of this until it’s already happened. By then, you might have motion sickness.
I’ve spent a lot of time in cars I’m not driving. Ubers, friends, family members who all drive at different levels. And I’ve started paying attention to what separates a good ride from a bad one. The answer is simpler than I expected: the best drivers minimize surprise.
Route Selection
There’s more to getting from A to B than the fastest path. Is it forest or ocean or just concrete? A scenic view can be inspiring. A forest can be calming. But also - are there red lights? Traffic? Every stop and start is acceleration your passenger didn’t ask for. Sometimes the longer route is the smoother one.
Know Who You’re Driving
Do you know them? Are they in a hurry? Someone rushing to catch a flight has different needs than someone heading home after a long day. I don’t think most drivers even consider this.
The Execution
This is where it actually matters. Soft brakes. Gentle gas. You’re optimizing for static force - minimizing the changes in G that catch passengers off guard. Smooth turns. No jerky corrections. The goal is for movement to feel inevitable rather than reactive.
Here’s the strange part: the best rides I’ve had have been in Waymos. Robot taxis. They don’t get impatient. They don’t accelerate into yellow lights. They don’t brake hard because they got distracted by a text. They just drive smoothly, constantly, almost boringly.
Of course, Waymo still can’t handle everything. It freezes when a construction worker waves it through. It doesn’t know what to do with a double-parked delivery truck and oncoming traffic. It lacks the intelligence to break its own rules when the situation calls for it.
But for pure passenger comfort? The robots are winning. And I think that should bother more human drivers than it does.