A Waymo idles at an intersection with no operating traffic lights in San Francisco on Saturday. Waymo shut down its service after a PG&E outage knocked out traffic signals across the city.

I’ve been driving for Uber in San Francisco for 10 years. I know how the fog rolls off the Pacific into the Sunset, and I know exactly which lane to be in to avoid the worst of the Market Street mess. I’ve driven through “atmospheric rivers” that turned the Marina District into a lake and sat in the gridlock of three Giants World Series parades at Market and Fourth streets.

But on Saturday, when the lights went dark across much of the city, I saw something that I hope others see: the importance of the human presence.

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Traffic lights from the Mission to the Richmond districts became empty black boxes. But the city didn’t stop. Why? Because the humans took over. We slowed down, we rolled down our windows and we caught each other’s eyes. A simple nod, a wave of the hand, “you go, then I’ll go.” There was something powerful and nostalgic about that moment. While Waymo’s multibillion-dollar software was crashing, drivers on the road were actually communicating, using our eyes, hands and ears to keep each other safe. We didn’t need an algorithm for that.

Meanwhile, the “future of transportation” was a disaster.

I saw........

© San Francisco Chronicle