I grew up around cars. My father worked in the motor trade, and from a young age the smell of a garage and the sound of an engine turning over felt like home. Like a lot of children, I dreamed of the day I would learn to drive and go wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted. Then I was told that one day I would lose my sight. In that moment, the ordinary freedom that most people take for granted, the freedom simply to get in a car and go, quietly slipped out of reach.
So when I say that the arrival of driverless cars in London matters to me, I do not mean it as a piece of technology news. I mean it personally. For the first time in my life, the independence I thought I had lost is coming back into view.
Why this is more than a novelty
Waymo, the driverless car company, has begun testing its vehicles on London’s roads and plans to launch a public service in the capital, subject to Government approval. For most people this is a curiosity, a glimpse of the future. For blind and partially sighted people, it is something far bigger.
Nearly two million people in the UK are blind or partially sighted, and that number is expected to double by 2050. More than half of us say we want to get out of the house more than we currently do. Not because we lack the desire, but because getting from one place to another safely, spontaneously and without having to rely on someone else is genuinely hard. Mobility sits underneath almost everything we want to do as human beings: work, friendship, parenting, a simple trip to the shops. Take it away, and independence goes with it.
A car that drives itself changes that equation. It offers autonomy, the ability to go out on my own terms. It offers privacy, because I no longer have to explain to anyone where I am going, why, or who I am going to see. And it offers dignity, because I am not asking for a favour or fitting my life around someone else’s timetable. I am simply going.
For the first time, I can go where I want, when I want, and answer to no one. That is not just a car ride. That is freedom.— Seema Flower, Founder, Blind Ambition
What it could unlock in everyday life
I think this technology will be a genuine game changer, and not only for people with sight loss. Imagine being a blind or partially sighted mother with a young baby. Right now, getting to a parent-and-toddler group, a class or a social event can be a real barrier. With a driverless car, you could go, with your child beside you, and spend that time together rather than spending it working out how to get there at all.
The technology also works well alongside the tools many of us already use. If you arrive somewhere unfamiliar and are not sure exactly where you are, an app such as Be My Eyes can help you orient yourself and find your way from the car to the door. The accessibility does not stop when the car does.
There is real thought going into the details, too. The app has been designed with accessibility in mind, and there are features that matter in practice, such as being able to trigger a sound so you can locate the car when it arrives rather than searching blindly along the kerb. Alongside that sit the safety features built into how the vehicles drive. These are the small design decisions that decide whether something is genuinely usable or simply usable in theory.
A friend’s dream, realised
My friend Robin Spinks, who leads inclusive design at the Royal National Institute of Blind People, has dreamed about autonomous vehicles for years. He was born with a permanent visual impairment, and like me he understands exactly what it means to be reliant on other people to get around. When he rode in a Waymo ahead of its London launch, he described it as the realisation of a dream.
My confidence grew very quickly when I could see the car negotiating, navigating a whole range of different situations and doing that really smoothly. It represents a new dawn in mobility, not just for those of us with vision loss, but for anybody.— Robin Spinks, Head of Inclusive Design, RNIB
Robin makes another point that will resonate with every guide dog owner. Too often, taxis and private hire drivers refuse the journey the moment they see an assistance dog. A driverless car does not do that. It does not misunderstand what a guide dog is, and it does not cancel the trip. And unlike a human driver at the end of a long shift, it does not get tired, moody or give you any attitude. It treats every passenger the same way, on every single journey. For many of us, that alone removes one of the most exhausting and undignified barriers we face.
There is reassurance in the numbers, too. Across more than 220 million miles of driving, Waymo’s vehicles have been involved in 82 per cent fewer injury-causing crashes than human drivers, including 93 per cent fewer crashes that injure pedestrians and 84 per cent fewer that injure cyclists. For a blind or partially sighted passenger, being statistically safer, and being treated with the same consistency every time, is not a small thing.
A social journey and a work journey are not the same
I want to be clear about something, because it matters. Driverless cars are not a way of doing away with Access to Work, or with a good taxi driver who knows how to look after a blind or partially sighted passenger. They are another option, and a brilliant one, but the right option depends entirely on the journey.
Think about the difference. When I travel for work, I might be presenting to a room of anywhere between twenty-five and two hundred people. I need to arrive calm, collected and ready. I need to trust that whoever drops me off knows exactly where I am and can set me down somewhere safe, where I will not be hurt as I step out of the car. That is a journey with very little margin for error.
A social journey is a completely different matter. If I am going to see my sister for a coffee and I am half an hour late, or I get a little stressed on the way, I can cope with that. She lives on a quiet road where I know I can get out of the car safely and find my way to her door. That is exactly the kind of journey where a driverless car could be wonderful. I could go independently, on my own terms, without explaining myself to anyone.
A work journey into central London is another world again. It is noisy and busy, with cyclists and e-scooters, debris and rubbish stacked on the pavements, and a hundred small hazards between the kerb and the door. For that, the human judgement of a driver who understands my needs still matters enormously. And, practically, the service is not yet everywhere; at the moment it does not necessarily run on the quieter roads where I would value it most. But that is the point. It is starting, and it is starting to be ready. When it arrives fully, it is going to be amazing.
Technology alone is not the answer
I want to be honest, because that is how we work at Blind Ambition. This is early. The cars are still being tested with safety operators on board, and a full public service depends on regulation catching up. Technology on its own is never the whole story. A driverless car is only as inclusive as the world it operates in: the pavement you cross to reach it, the pick-up point you have to find, the confidence of the people and organisations around you to get the details right.
That is exactly why our work does not stop at awareness. Awareness alone is insufficient. The goal is confidence, capability and consistent behaviour, so that as this technology arrives, the businesses, transport providers and public spaces around it are ready to make it genuinely accessible, not accidentally exclusive. Innovation like this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to design independence in from the start. We should not waste it.
For now, though, I will allow myself a moment of pure excitement. The little girl who grew up around cars, who thought that world had closed to her, can see a door opening again. And when a driverless car pulls up outside my home and waits for me, and only me, I will step in, and I will go.
