throwaway2037 3 hours ago

Don't tell me... you are a man? I guess so. How many middle class women and above want to ride SFMuni after dark? Few.

The future of self-driving taxis is women (customers) who want to live in a big city, but don't want to ride mass transit, nor ride in a ride-hailing services (Uber, etc.) with a human driver... because most drivers are men.

▲

waterhouse 44 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Uber and Lyft both provide an option for women to request female drivers. In both cases, they say they can't guarantee it and that they may end up matched with a male driver. (In Lyft's case, they group "nonbinary" with women.) I suppose you could cancel if you see it's a man, and if that's rare enough, maybe that's workable. (Though, it seems, that would happen only if there aren't any female drivers available, and thus you'd have to fall back to other transportation.)

https://help.uber.com/en/riders/article/women-preferences-fa...

https://help.lyft.com/hc/en-us/all/articles/9030680293-Women...

▲

seizethecheese 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This kind of gender politics is tiresome. You could easily point out that for women public transit is untenable after dark instead of bringing the OP’s identity into it.

▲

saghm 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I imagine that Uber can also be somewhat sketchy but with a different risk profile (getting into the car with a stranger, often a man, and needing to trust that they'll drive you to the right location), which means that self-driving taxis would be a potential safety upgrade over that as well.

▲

throwaway2037 2 hours ago | parent [-]

1000%. Ask any women who uses ride-hailing services: Have you ever had a situation where the driver made you uncomfortable or fear for your safety? I would conservatively estimate 100% of women. I think men just do not understand how much women are willing to pay to guarantee they can avoid this situation.

	▲	throwawaytea 33 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Not a single woman has even asked or cared if I felt uncomfortable at a gas station at night, or ATM, or walking down the street. Yet data shows men are more likely to be physically assaulted and/or killed by strangers.
	▲	saghm 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I definitely was not aware of this when I was younger, but after years of learning to be a better listener and learn about experiences outside my own, my perception is that there are unfortunately quite a lot of situations that most men would consider quite mundane but pretty much all women will have had to fear for their safety in. I guess I shouldn't be so surprised that when others have trouble conceiving of this phenomenon given how long I went without picking up on it, but now that I'm aware of it it's impossible not to see it everywhere.