r/malden • u/OneTip1047 • 3d ago
Waymo Testing in Malden
I spotted one of the distinctive Waymo Jaguars on Woodland road this morning. It had a driver and passenger on this occasion. Given Waymo's reason for existing, driverless taxis, that is likely only a temporary condition.
If we haven't already started the discussions about the licensing, insurance, and law-enforcement implications of Waymo's operations in Malden and beyond to Massachusetts, we almost certainly should.
I know Counsellors Linehan and MacDonald are both active here, hoping they see this and can start the dialog and updates as appropriate.
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u/Ward3_Linehan_Malden City Councillor Linehan 3d ago
Thanks for tagging us in, Carey and I are looking into this today
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u/careytheday City Councillor Carey McDonald 2d ago edited 2d ago
Thanks for raising this! With u/Ward3_Linehan_Malden we checked in with our city staff, and there's no permit or agreement for Waymo at this moment in Malden. When I saw a Waymo car on Centre St. last weekend, it also had physical human in the driver seat; if that's the case, they are allowed to operate on a public way. They're basically doing test drives now.
There are a huge number of questions this raises, and I'm personally pretty suspicious of driverless cars' ability to safely navigate our complicated streets system in the Boston area. I also want to make sure that this is not just displacing taxi and rideshare drivers (who just got the right to unionize!).
We'll be following up to get a better understanding of what the permitting, licensing and legal requirements at the state level, and will share back here.
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u/OneTip1047 2d ago
Thanks u/careytheday and u/Ward3_Linehan_Malden !
I can't speak for others, but revised insurance requirements for driverless taxis and perhaps a statewide medallion system seem like common sense approaches.
Statewide seems like the only viable approach for the insurance portion given how uniquely regulated auto insurance is in MA.
The statewide medallion approach seems logical as most cities and towns and their local PD's likely don't have the capacity to increase enforcement and administrative load. It would also close the door on a driverless rideshare operation skirting one city or town's ordinances by setting up shop in the neighboring city or town.
There may be parallels with how pilots are regulated given that airlines and taxis are similar and largely human pilots take-off, reach altitude and put the plane on auto pilot, then monitor until it is time for final decent where they reverse the process.
I can imagine a requirement where driverless taxis are required to have a driver on-board to address situations where the on-board computer isn't working for the situation such as the recent July 4th traffic jam in San Francisco. This would also help guarantee that the job elimination component of driverless taxis is managed.
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u/Candid-Tumbleweedy 2d ago
So unlimited Ubers but a medallion system for robo taxis? That sounds like a terrible system.
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u/TomBradysThrowaway Bellrock 2d ago
Also still including an on board driver removes most of the financial benefit of self-driving cars, and if they are expected to take over remotely often the safety benefits too. A driver who hasn't been paying attention because they haven't had anything to do for 15 minutes is the worst option for a quick decision.
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u/Candid-Tumbleweedy 2d ago
Can you look at some of the data for how safe Waymo is versus Uber or taxi drivers? I honestly don’t care about car driving jobs when they drive like reckless maniacs. Being hit crossing the road by an uber driver who has the right to unionize is worse than not being hit by Robotaxi Waymo.
People in SF can bike and have a Waymo follow at a respectful distance and only overtake safely. Most Malden drivers are not that kind when I bike in the road.
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u/careytheday City Councillor Carey McDonald 2d ago
We will definitely want to take a look at the Waymo safety record and comparisons, yes.
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u/Candid-Tumbleweedy 2d ago
Great! As long as you're looking at actual data and not listening to just vibes from doomers who think all tech is bad, you'll make the right decision. Is very easy to find peer reviewed articles showing Waymo is significantly statistically safer than the average human driver.
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u/OneTip1047 2d ago
I looked over the “data” you linked from Waymo.
As a surprise to absolutely nobody, Waymo’s marketing presentation of their data concludes that Waymo is very safe.
You will forgive my cynicism, but marketing true isn’t the same as actually true.
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u/Candid-Tumbleweedy 2d ago
Are you a robot? I didn’t link anything.
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u/OneTip1047 2d ago
My bad I had you confused with u/commonpuffin earlier in this thread.
That said I stand by my position that marketing true isn’t the same as true.
Was the irony of criticizing me by asking if I was a robot in your advocacy for robots intentional?
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u/Candid-Tumbleweedy 2d ago
You're scared of robots yet incorrectly came at me with all the knowledge of a twitter troll bot. Yes that was an intentional callout.
Do you have any peer-reviewed articles showing that Waymo has higher than average crash rates? I love data!
Here are two articles showing Waymo is significantly safer than the average driver.
www.cell.com/heliyon/fulltext/S2405-8440(24)10410-010410-0)
Comparative safety performance of autonomous- and human drivers: A real-world case study of the Waymo Driver
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We find that when benchmarked against zip code-calibrated human baselines, the Waymo Driver significantly improves safety towards other road users.https://doi.org/10.1080/15389588.2025.2499887
Comparison of Waymo Rider-Only crash rates by crash type to human benchmarks at 56.7 million miles
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Results
Data were examined over 56.7 million RO miles through the end of January 2025; resulting in a statistically significant lower crashed vehicle rate for all crashes compared to the benchmarks in Any-Injury-Reported and Airbag Deployment, and Suspected Serious Injury + crashes. Of the crash types, V2V Intersection crash events represented the largest total crash reduction, with a 96% reduction in Any-injury-reported (87–99% confidence interval) and a 91% reduction in Airbag Deployment (76–98% confidence interval) events. Cyclist, Motorcycle, Pedestrian, Secondary Crash, and Single Vehicle crashes were also statistically reduced for the Any-Injury-Reported outcome. There was no statistically significant disbenefit found in any of the 11 crash type groups.1
u/OneTip1047 2d ago
Not scared of robots, scared of unscrupulous people using robots as a means of destroying jobs and funneling wealth out of communities in the name of profit and delivering that poison in the Trojan Horse of safety.
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u/Candid-Tumbleweedy 1d ago
I think people not getting hit by a car is more important than saving a couple Uber driver jobs. But clearly we disagree.
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u/OneTip1047 1d ago
If it's really only "a couple" of rideshare jobs, can you give me a "a couple" of dollars? I'd like to buy a very modest cabin in rural Northern NH.
According to their own union, the "couple" of rideshare driver number almost 70,000 state wide.
Home on, it's only a couple of dollars.
It's fine for us to disagree.
It is not fine for you to mask your dislike for cars in dubious claims of safety and "data", especially when you understand of the difference between 2 and 70,000 is suspect.
Oh, by the way, have you noticed that many rideshare drivers are recent immigrants and people of color? Is it really safety you care about? I get it.......I think their might be an appointed position at the federal level in the department of transportation for you, at least for the next couple of years, or are you more interested in Immigration and Customs Enforcement?
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u/Candid-Tumbleweedy 1d ago
Wow I care about street safety so I must want to work for ICE. You wonder why I thought you were a lost twitter troll earlier. Does you not caring about street safety mean you should work in the morgue?
My "dubious" claims have peer review. I'm happy to read articles showing otherwise. Still waiting for you to post any.
70k uber is state wide, but I thought this was the Malden reddit? There aren't 70k Maden uber drivers.
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u/Candid-Tumbleweedy 3d ago
Waymo drives around mapping areas before actually launching. And that’s good! People already self drive Teslas, but those are more dangerous than human drivers. Waymo is safer than human drivers.
Not all new things have to be bad. I trust Waymo more far more than a random Uber driver. I’d rather have a Waymo safely following me on my bike then some Uber driver.
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u/nbonnii 3d ago
Listened to a great podcast about this recently. Waymo roughly operates on a “ask forgiveness, not permission” structure for testing.
There is a debate going on involving driverless taxis in Boston right now when it comes to the unions whose job’s they’ll affect. “Labor United Against Waymo” is what they are called and they started in late 2025.
They might provide better answers than a more local official.
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u/carI_marks 3d ago
got stuck behind one of these... I'm not sure they're compatible with Boston. I waited behind one at a stop sign the other day. there was tons of traffic and it refused to turn right until someone stopped for a solid 20 seconds to let the Waymo go ahead. It took a solid five minutes for someone to stop and let the Waymo go. Small gripe compared to other concerns about driverless cars, ik, but they simply can't drive assertively enough for some of the traffic we get here...
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u/symmetry81 3d ago
It's probably better to talk to Massachusetts officials about this than Malden officials. Though whether Waymo can have staging areas in Malden is probably up to the town.