More context on the -no safety driver- issue.

"Eliminating the safety driver is an important step toward making Waymo's service profitable. But it may not be enough on its own because Waymo says the cars still have remote overseers.

These Waymo staffers never steer the vehicles directly, but they do send high-level instructions to help vehicles get out of tricky situations. For example, a Waymo spokeswoman told me, "if a Waymo vehicle detects that a road ahead may be closed due to construction, it can pull over and request a second set of eyes from our fleet response specialists." The fleet response specialist can then confirm that the road is closed and instruct the vehicle to take another route."

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/10/waymo-finally-launches-...