— This is a guest post by Ben Smith aka Four Door Phil —
When people ask me what I think about autonomous vehicles, they usually expect me to choose a side.
They expect me to defend rideshare drivers or criticize the technology. They expect me to talk about jobs, regulations, safety, or the future of transportation. Those are important conversations, and they’re happening every day. After years of driving, though, I’ve found myself thinking about a different question entirely.
Not what a self driving car can do.
What a human driver can do that has nothing to do with driving.
The longer I’ve spent behind the wheel, the less I’ve believed this job is about transportation. Transportation is simply the reason two strangers happen to share the same space for fifteen or twenty minutes. What happens during those minutes is where the work becomes interesting. Sometimes nothing happens at all, and that’s perfectly okay. Other times, those few minutes become a reminder of just how much people can offer one another without ever expecting to meet again.
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Curiosity Creates Connection
A passenger once asked if I would turn the heat on during a warm summer evening. My first thought wasn’t that they were being unreasonable. It was that comfort is personal. I don’t have to understand why someone feels cold in order to respect it. Another passenger spent the ride quietly talking about one of the hardest seasons of their life. When we arrived, they asked if I would be willing to give them a hug. They asked. I said yes. It wasn’t the hug that stayed with me. It was the trust required to ask another human being for comfort.
I’ve had passengers who weren’t sure how to add a stop in the app, and others who didn’t know they could change their destination after the ride began. I’ve helped someone locate a phone that had slipped beneath a seat before panic had a chance to set in. I’ve shared conversations that ended in laughter, conversations that ended in tears, and conversations that simply needed another person willing to listen without trying to solve anything.
None of those moments required extraordinary driving. They required paying attention and being present.
That’s the part of rideshare I don’t think we talk about enough. The best drivers aren’t necessarily the ones with the newest cars or the fastest routes. They’re the ones who notice the little things and give the rider a feeling of safety. As a hiring manager long before I became a rideshare driver, I interviewed many people whose nerves often got the better of them. Every now and then, I’ll pick up someone on their way to an interview, and I recognize that same anxious energy. Sometimes we’ll talk about the job. Sometimes we’ll laugh about something completely unrelated. More than once, a rider has told me they stepped out of the car feeling calmer than when they got in. I don’t think it was because I had the perfect advice. Sometimes people simply need another human being who believes they’re going to be okay.
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Hospitality Begins Before The Ride Does
Hospitality often begins before the car is even moving. Confirming a destination isn’t just about making sure the navigation is correct. It’s an opportunity to show genuine interest in where someone is headed. If they’re going to a restaurant, I’ll sometimes ask what kind of food they serve or whether it’s somewhere they’d recommend. If it’s a concert venue, an art exhibit, a comic shop, or a neighborhood I’ve never explored, I get curious. More often than not, those simple questions become conversations that go somewhere unexpected. I’ve discovered incredible restaurants, hidden bookstores, local artists, and community events because passengers were excited to share something they enjoy. Music, food, comics, games, travel… those interests aren’t visible on the cover of someone’s story, but once you start reading a few chapters, you often discover you have more in common than either of you expected.
I’ve also learned that preparedness is another form of hospitality. I keep vomit bags in my car not because I expect passengers to get sick, but because every once in a great while, someone does. I needed one recently, when a young woman celebrating her college graduation suddenly realized she wasn’t going to make it home without getting sick. She wasn’t the most visibly intoxicated of the group, but before panic had a chance to spread through the car, the bag was already in her hands. We made a quick stop so it could be thrown away, everyone reassured her that she was okay, and the ride continued. The bag protected my car, certainly, but more importantly, it protected her dignity. Sometimes thinking ahead isn’t about preventing problems. It’s about making sure that when life happens, another person doesn’t have to carry embarrassment on top of everything else.
The same philosophy shows up in the smallest moments. A warm greeting lets someone know they’re in the right car. A genuine thank you at the end of the ride reminds them that I don’t take their business, or the time we shared together, for granted. Those moments aren’t programmed responses. They’re acknowledgments that another human being chose to spend a small part of their day with me. None of these actions appear in a navigation algorithm, yet they’re often what people remember long after they’ve arrived.
The Difference Between Judgment and Intelligence
I’ve also come to believe that one of the most valuable things a human driver brings is judgment. Not judgment of people, but judgment in situations. Every experienced driver eventually encounters requests they simply can’t accommodate. I’ve had passengers hoping to fit a bed into a sedan. I’ve had people wanting me to transport someone other than them who was too intoxicated to safely care for themselves. In those moments, the question isn’t, “Can I complete this trip?” The question is, “What’s the safest and kindest thing to do next?” Those answers aren’t found on a map. They’re found in experience, empathy, and sometimes in the willingness to disappoint someone in order to protect them.
I don’t think any of this makes human drivers better than autonomous vehicles.
In many situations, autonomous vehicles may eventually prove to be safer, more consistent, and less prone to the mistakes that all human beings inevitably make. I genuinely hope transportation continues becoming safer through better technology. That’s progress, and progress is something worth celebrating. But transportation and hospitality have never been the same thing.
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The Human Advantage
A self driving car may someday take me to the airport more safely than any human driver.
I hope it does.
But I don’t believe I’ll ever step out of that vehicle feeling like someone genuinely cared how my day was going.
Transportation can be automated.
Hospitality cannot.
A machine can calculate the fastest route. It can optimize traffic. It can predict arrival times with astonishing accuracy. What it can’t do is notice that someone is carrying more than a suitcase. It can’t recognize the hesitation in a passenger’s voice, the relief that comes from a simple reassurance, or the quiet gratitude exchanged between two people who know they’ll probably never meet again.
That’s what I believe the real job has always been.
Driving gets people from Point A to Point B.
Being human helps them through everything in between.
