My week navigating the awkward teenage years of self-driving cars

Pedestrians and human motorists in San Francisco are learning to interact with robot drivers'. Here's how my experience went

When I lived in the Outer Sunset, San Francisco's foggy beachside neighborhood, I grew accustomed to seeing camera and sensor-fitted vehicles roaming through the surfer and pastel home-lined streets. The quiet neighborhood made an obvious testing ground for Google-owned Waymo and General Motors-owned Cruise. At the time, company staff still sat in the driver's seat, ready to take over at a moment's notice if the self-driving car didn't behave the way it was supposed to.

Fast forward a year later, on a recent trip back to the city, it suddenly hit me.