A ride to the hardware store gives Lars time to offer unwanted advice—and consider who gets to choose the ride.
My car was at the garage, and Earl had offered me a ride home after coffee. He needed to stop at the hardware store on the way. When Ruth heard that, she mentioned a bird feeder she’d been wanting to buy and asked if she could come with.
“Only if it’s no trouble,” she said.
Earl said it wasn’t.
Earl had barely backed out of the café parking lot when I mentioned that he could have gone the other way.
“Could have,” he said.
There are several ways to drive to the hardware store, and I have useful observations about all of them. Earl had offered me a ride, which I appreciated, but accepting transportation shouldn’t require a man to withhold local knowledge. I pointed out the shorter route. He adjusted the heater.
Ruth was in the back seat with her purse on her lap, still making sure her errand wasn’t putting anybody out. Since we were going to the hardware store and the bird feeders were inside it, the arrangements seemed manageable.
“As long as we’re going right past,” she said.
“We’re going in,” Earl said.
“Well, then.”
She settled back a little. I was preparing to explain which entrance had the better parking when Earl said, “Lars, I’ve been there.”
Now, Ruth no longer drives. That leaves a person doing a fair amount of arithmetic before asking a simple question. Who’s going? When? How much extra time would it take? Is this worth bothering somebody about? Prescriptions and groceries feel like good enough reasons to ask somebody for a ride. A bird feeder is easier to keep putting off.
Earl hadn’t made her feel like a bother. He’d offered the ride gladly. But Ruth had still presented her purchase as something we might accidentally pass close enough to accomplish.
I’d been reading about driverless rides down in Minneapolis, and somewhere between my second route suggestion and Earl’s decision not to acknowledge it, the passenger side of that question began looking a little different.
The city is considering a requirement that a licensed driver sit in the driver’s seat at all times, paid at least minimum wage. The Business, Housing and Zoning Committee resumes its hearing September 29. Call the proposal what you like, but a service required to carry a driver cannot offer you a driverless ride. That makes it a de facto ban on driverless rideshare, even if the car is allowed to do the steering.
I can see why people who earn their living driving are worried. Losing customers means losing income, and a car payment doesn’t become more understanding because somebody invented something. Plenty of passengers also want a driver who can help them. Keep that choice available, you betcha. I’m having trouble seeing why everybody else has to make it.
At the store, I headed toward the bird feeders with Ruth while Earl went to look for what he needed. She passed the first display without hesitation and picked up a metal feeder farther down the aisle.
“That one?” I asked.
“That one.”
I showed her a larger model. It held more seed, according to the box, which seemed worth bringing to her attention.
“I can reach the top of this one,” she said.
There was also a red one.
“I like the green.”
Ruth had apparently come to the store knowing what she wanted, a possibility I hadn’t fully allowed for.
While she paid, I thought about how easily those of us doing the helping can begin supplying decisions nobody ordered. I’d been in Earl’s passenger seat for ten minutes and tried to take over navigation. Given another five, I might have reorganized Ruth’s birds.
Of course, a taxi or an ordinary rideshare can already get somebody to the store without asking a neighbor for a favor. Driverless service adds another choice: a ride without another person aboard. Some people want company. Some find conversation with strangers tiring or awkward. Some would simply enjoy twenty minutes in which nobody expects an answer.
That doesn’t mean you dislike drivers. I like Earl. I was beginning to suspect he might enjoy a quieter passenger.
Ruth came away from the register with her feeder in a bag, ready to leave. We found Earl beside a snowblower, talking to a man who had strong views about the discharge chute.
Earl held up one finger. Just a minute.
We waited through the chute, the tires, and an account of a machine the other fellow used to own. Ruth set her bag down. Nobody had started the snowblower, but we were making a full morning of it.
Winter is a fair question for driverless cars, too. Waymo has tested in Buffalo and Detroit, among other places. That’s useful experience; it isn’t proof of dependable passenger service through a Minnesota winter. I’d expect the company to demonstrate what it can handle here, and stay off roads when it can’t.
I’d also expect a safety discussion to look at more than the latest alarming video. In its Safety Impact data through June 2026, covering 271.3 million driverless miles, Waymo reports 95 percent fewer serious-injury-or-worse crashes and 82 percent fewer injury-causing crashes than its human-driving benchmarks. Those are the company’s reported comparisons in the places it operates, not a promise that nothing will go wrong here. They’re still substantial results to weigh when deciding whether people should have the option.
I want those safety questions answered. But if the service can operate safely here, concern for drivers’ incomes isn’t enough reason to tell passengers they can’t choose it. They ought to have a say in how they get around, too.
Across the aisle, Earl and the other fellow had opened the subject of shear pins.
“Should I go get him?” I asked.
“He’s enjoying himself,” Ruth said.
She wasn’t cross. Neither was I, particularly. Earl was doing us a kindness, and there are worse places to wait than a hardware store. Still, Ruth had finished the errand she’d barely felt entitled to ask for, and the fellow who’d assured her it was no trouble was now keeping her waiting.
Eventually Earl came over, carrying a small packet that did not appear to explain the elapsed time.
“Everybody ready?”
Ruth picked up her bag. On the way to the door, she asked if we could stop for coffee.
“Sure,” Earl said. “Back to Arlene’s?”
“I was thinking the place with the cinnamon rolls.”
“That’s the other direction,” I said.
Ruth smiled. “I know.”
