𝙊𝙪𝙧 𝙨𝙖𝙛𝙚𝙩𝙮 𝙘𝙖𝙨𝙚 𝙛𝙧𝙖𝙢𝙚𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙠 𝙞𝙨 𝙞𝙣 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙪𝙤𝙪𝙨 𝙚𝙫𝙤𝙡𝙪𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣

CRIT
08-30-02023

𝘼 𝘽𝙞𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝘾𝙤𝙧𝙥𝙤-𝙅𝙖𝙧𝙜𝙤𝙣 ::

“𝙊𝙪𝙧 𝙨𝙖𝙛𝙚𝙩𝙮 𝙘𝙖𝙨𝙚 𝙛𝙧𝙖𝙢𝙚𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙠 𝙞𝙨 𝙞𝙣 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙪𝙤𝙪𝙨 𝙚𝙫𝙤𝙡𝙪𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣.”

- 𝙒𝙖𝙮𝙢𝙤’𝙨 𝘼𝙪𝙩𝙤𝙣𝙤𝙢𝙤𝙪𝙨 𝙑𝙚𝙝𝙞𝙘𝙡𝙚 𝙎𝙖𝙛𝙚𝙩𝙮 𝙄𝙣𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙢𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝘽𝙡𝙤𝙜

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𝘼 𝙎𝙝𝙤𝙧𝙩 𝙃𝙖𝙡𝙛-𝙏𝙧𝙪𝙚 𝙎𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙮 ::

𝙇𝙤𝙘𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 :: 𝙋𝙝𝙤𝙚𝙣𝙞𝙭, 𝘼𝙕

I’m sitting at a rusty patio table in the fenced-in parking lot turned plaza behind 𝙶𝚛𝚊𝚌𝚒𝚎'𝚜 𝚃𝚊𝚡 𝙱𝚊𝚛 — one of those temporary COVID solutions that turned permanent, but is forever lookin’ temporary. It’s hot, but the night breeze is wafting cool clouds over me from the cord of misters affixed to the 𝙶𝚛𝚊𝚌𝚒𝚎'𝚜 cinder block wall. Out of that mist, emerges a friend with wide eyes, freaking.

“What’s up? You good?” I ask.

“Yeah… no. I will be. I’m freaked out but I don’t no where to put it yet.”

She sits down.

“I was just trying to parallel park, pulling a little past the spot to back in as one does, and this white car pulls right behind me, like, right on my ass.”

I hand her my beer. She takes a long swallow, then continues.

“Thanks. And I’m thinking, ‘what the fuck, dude?’ I’m clearly trying to park and you’re clearly blocking me. So, I stick my hand out and wave the fucker around, but the car sits there with its electric engine whining. So, I lean my whole body out the window, ready to shout, ‘go the fuck aroooound!’ But there’s no one in the car. No one in the car! I got really freaked out. Like, am I being fucked with here ? Then I notice the black camera on the spinning roof. I realize it’s one of those ᴡᴀʏᴍᴏ™1 self-drive things.”

She pauses, and I let the silence breath.

“I didn’t even know they went full driverless — that there was no one too, well, reason with anymore. I started having a panic attack, breathing really fast. Something about the thought of it just sitting there forever, blocking me forever, that big black eye spinning & spinning forever, terrified me. It was like, without the face of a driver, the whole car becomes a giant unfeeling face. Like, a close up shot of a spider, you know? Those huge black eyes. Remorseless. The last thing you see before you die. When I was a kid, those pictures sent me into crying fits. For a second, it felt that feeling again.”

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𝘼 𝙃𝙞𝙩 𝙋𝙞𝙚𝙘𝙚 ::

𝙇𝙤𝙘𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 :: 𝙋𝙝𝙤𝙚𝙣𝙞𝙭, 𝘼𝙕

For over a year I’d seen them — the white ᴡᴀʏᴍᴏ™ ＪＡＧＵＡＲ S™ covered with cameras, two dudes in surgical masks riding in the front. Then one night… dudeless.

It was surreal, surreal because it was casual. It pulled up next to me at the redlight like a regular pulls up a barstool. I’d been hearing about self-driving car projects for decades. They’d been just-around-the-corner for so long I’d assumed that’s where they’d stay, trapped forever in the near-future. Why wasn’t this historic inaugural journey the top story on every news platform? Where was the fanfare, the champagne bottle christening, and MEMEs. Lord, where were the MEMEs?

It didn’t take much reflection to see the silliness of these questions. Well paid PR minds knew this driverless development was far more eerie than exciting. ᴡᴀʏᴍᴏ™ played it safe with whimpers, over bangs. Better to let it roll up beside me like a forgone conclusion.

Isn’t that a lot to ask of a of my psyche — of any driver’s psyche? To flip a silent switch that turns an entire city into a laboratory rat maze, and let the ᴡᴀʏᴍᴏꜱ™ loose? I’m not even sure who the lab rats are. The ᴡᴀʏᴍᴏꜱ™ are the ones covered in cameras. Looking at them, I feel…

【⚈】【o】【b】【s】【e】【r】【v】【e】【d】【⚈】

Like test animal at the center of a nesting doll of eyes and mazes. Like data.

One thing is for sure, no one asked me if this was okay.



The light goes green, the ᴡᴀʏᴍᴏ™ accelerates with a reaction time I’m unable to match. I drop my motorcycle into gear and play catch up. This doesn’t take long. The ᴡᴀʏᴍᴏ’ꜱ™ acceleration cuts off at 45 MPH speed limit, with a sharpness that seems to almost sassy.

Sigh*, “I could go sooo much faster… if I were allowed.”

I match its speed for a few blocks, watching it like the trailer for a blockbuster dystopian thriller. Watching it watch me watch it. It slows, turns right, and drives into the Phoenix night, consuming data like a whale consumes krill.

I’ve been juiced for data for the near-entirety of my life, but ᴡᴀʏᴍᴏ™ squeezes that data with a visceral literalness. My body is on the line. Flesh and bone forced to contend with codes controlling steel and speed. A asymmetrical power dynamic underscored every time a ᴡᴀʏᴍᴏ™ approaches me, like a huge jungle cat the owner insists is tame.

We motorcyclists develops an intuition. A precognitive ability to predict what a driver is going to do unrelated to any visual or auditory signaling. On multiple occasions I’ve trusted this intuition and given a vehicle a defensive distance or a quick pass, and moments later, seen that vehicle CR∀SH.

My intuition lights up like a vape shop in the presence of a ᴡᴀʏᴍᴏ™. Not because a CR∀SH is imminent, but because they drive in a manner strange and inhuman. They drive with the unnatural efficiency of code.

For my second encounter, I’m at a red light again. I glance in my side view mirror. A ᴡᴀʏᴍᴏ™ is coming up behind me — coming up very fast. I’m forced to place faith in a capitalist machine racing against other capitalist machines to seize the autonomous driving market as fast as possible… I mean safely, as fast as is safely possible.

(ᴡᴀʏᴍᴏ™ ꜱᴜᴇᴅ ᴜʙᴇʀ™ ɪɴ 2018 ꜰᴏʀ ꜱᴛᴇᴀʟɪɴɢ ɪᴛꜱ ᴀᴜᴛᴏɴᴏᴍᴏᴜꜱ ᴅʀɪᴠɪɴɢ “ᴛʀᴀᴅᴇ ꜱᴇᴄʀᴇᴛꜱ & ɪɴᴛᴇʟʟᴇᴄᴛᴜᴀʟ ᴘʀᴏᴘᴇʀᴛʏ”, ᴡʜɪᴄʜ ɪꜱ ᴅʏꜱᴛᴏᴘɪᴄ ᴄᴏɴꜱɪᴅᴇʀɪɴɢ ʜᴏᴡ ᴍᴜᴄʜ ꜱᴀꜰᴇʀ ɪᴛ ᴡᴏᴜʟᴅ ʙᴇ ɪꜰ ᴛʜᴇʏ ᴄᴏʟʟᴀʙᴏʀᴀᴛᴇᴅ)

Relief floods me, as the ᴡᴀʏᴍᴏ™ makes an inhumanly short stop.

Of course, I place similar shaky faith in every human driver. As a motorcyclist, that faith gamble comes at higher stakes. It is a faith betrayed daily by erratic, absent minded, and machismo-intoxicate (ᴏʀ ᴊᴜꜱᴛ ɪɴᴛᴏxɪᴄᴀᴛᴇᴅ) drivers. And I don’t know whether self-driving cars crash more or less often than humans (ɪ'ᴠᴇ ꜱᴇᴇᴍ ꜱᴛᴀᴛꜱ ᴄᴜᴛᴛɪɴɢ ʙᴏᴛʜ ᴡᴀʏꜱ).

I have seen a ᴡᴀʏᴍᴏ™ brick itself in front of the scene of a human-on-human accident, obstructing a fire truck. Another time, one sat in the middle of a crosswalk.

A man shouted, “get the fuck out of the way,” as he walks around the hood.

Another man passing by says, “don’t bother Brother, ain’t nobody in there.”



Turning an entire city into an experiment with a potential death toll seems like the type of decision that should have been put to the ballot. Are roads not one of the few authentic commons left in America? A rare example of collective taxpayer ownership? Clearly not, or the right to choose to share the road with hundreds of driverless ＪＡＧＵＡＲ S ™ would have been respected. The reason it wasn’t put to a vote is obvious, the I’d bet the majority would have voted NO.

The decision likely went down in a tedious city council meeting. A banal cabal of out-of-touch representatives who I read a curated paragraph about once ever 4 years in a dry newsprint voter guide — the buck, rigged to stop at the voting public .

Fine, no vote. How about a share of the profits then? It's my flesh on the pavement, after all. At least buy me off ᴡᴀʏᴍᴏ™. The company is a subsidiary of the tech behemoth ᴀʟᴘʜᴀʙᴇᴛ™. I was positive it paid the city of Phoenix a tidy sum for the right to conduct a 2 million participant experiment. I mean, what kind idiot would surrender an entire city for free?

It doesn’t seem to have gone down like that. I could only find an instance where Phoenix paid ᴡᴀʏᴍᴏ™ $200,000 to taxi public transit drivers to work. A fact that is so bass-ackwards, it's back to ass-backwards.

Perhaps ᴡᴀʏᴍᴏ™ got the right gov authorities to license them as a taxi company and don’t need any permission. Maybe they went the UBER™ route, bypassed laws, tossing empty apologies like confetti. Or, maybe…

(ᴍᴏᴠᴇ ꜰᴀꜱᴛ, ʙʀᴇᴀᴋ ᴛʜɪɴɢꜱ, ᴇɴᴇᴍɪᴇꜱ ᴏꜰ ᴘʀᴏɢʀᴇꜱꜱ, ᴛʜᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪᴄ ᴅᴏᴇꜱɴ’ᴛ ᴋɴᴏᴡ ᴡʜᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴇʏ ɴᴇᴇᴅ, ᴛᴇᴄʜ-ꜱᴀᴠɪᴏʀ ᴄᴏᴍᴘʟᴇx, ꜱʜᴀʀᴇʜᴏʟᴅᴇʀ ᴠᴀʟᴜᴇ).

I don’t know, and I don’t have the corpo-jargon patience to find out. One thing is STILL for sure, no one asked me if this was okay.

To me, the ᴡᴀʏᴍᴏ’ꜱ™ peppering the Phoenix streets have morphed into beast-enforcers of and aggressive techo-capital future asserting itself over me stopping — like come-at-me-bro college bar coward — just short of violent collision. This feeling not good for my mental health, as I try to parent the childish part of me that is quick to feels victimized by the future, by tech, by capitalism, by…

(ᴘᴏᴡᴇʀ ꜰʀᴇᴇ ꜱᴘᴀᴄᴇ: _______________ ).

Tempting though it is, I know from experience the isolation of being run over by victimhood. It leaves me, no matter the company, a lonely cynic.

I am calling in some grace, and using this fresh tech power grab as guiding anti-magnetism toward the type of futures I do want. Ones with more human connection on the spiritual-side, and more effective public transit on the literal-side. While also using this as a creative opportunity for subversion,

(ɪꜰ ʏᴏᴜ ᴘᴜᴛ ᴀ ᴄᴏɴᴇ ᴏɴ ᴛʜᴇ ʜᴏᴏᴅ ᴏꜰ ᴀ ᴡᴀʏᴍᴏ™ ɪᴛ ʙʀɪᴄᴋꜱ ᴄᴏᴍɪᴄᴀʟʟʏ, ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴀ ᴄᴏᴍᴀᴛᴏꜱᴇ ᴜɴɪᴄᴏʀɴ).

Because if ᴡᴀʏᴍᴏ™ and I were to collide, it troubling to imagine lying on the night-quiet road, mauled and scared, knowing no human was in there to help me. Only a large black eye, spinning & spinning, forever.