Waymo puts focus on safety as it shows off 'capable, reliable' self-driving cars

Of all my recurring anxiety dreams, my least favorite is the one where I'm in a car. It always begins with me driving, but eventually I realize that for some reason I'm sitting in the back seat. My arms can't reach the steering wheel, my legs can't reach the pedals, and I'm stuck in a spiral of terror, careening around turns and accelerating toward obstacles until, gasping, I wake up. This is a bit like the passenger experience in Waymo's self-driving cars. You climb into the back seat of a minivan, and watch in awe – or horror – as the wheel turns itself above an entirely empty driving seat. "We made you live your nightmare," a Waymo staffer joked to me after I exited one of the company's fully autonomous Chrysler Pacifica minivans, following a quick drive inside the company's 91-acre testing site in California's Central Valley.