A Waymo Jaguar being driven by St Pancras station on Friday

WAYVE’S autonomous vehicles have just debuted on the Uber app.

Cue excitable videos from influencers and reporters, keen to experience the United Kingdom’s first brush with driverless cars and judge for themselves whether they can handle London’s complex and congested roads.

Amid the flurry of excitement last week, one group of people in particular watched this development with trepidation: private hire drivers.

GMB union represents thousands of drivers and we share their nervousness about the arrival of driverless cars into this country.

Technology marches on and jobs change, but rarely with so many unanswered questions for the people right at the heart of that change.

Even as autonomous vehicles hit the capital’s streets, our members are still no closer to understanding what this development means for them.

How will they be supported to reskill and redeploy if their jobs go?

We have asked government, Transport for London, and the operators, but no one can give a straight answer to the questions.

As private hire driver and GMB professional drivers branch secretary, Kola Olalekan, says, “These are untested waters in the UK and where it’s going to lead us, nobody knows.”

The same goes for the eco-system of businesses that rely on these drivers: garages, car washes, car leasing firms, and independent cafés.

How will they cope with a significant loss of revenue if the app operators decide that drivers are no longer required?

Hundreds of thousands of people are employed to drive every day, so we need to see a far more careful roll-out of driverless cars unless we are prepared to see unprecedented levels of social and economic disruption.

GMB’s Matthew Wright

The potential consequences surrounding increases in employment and corresponding losses in tax revenue are extremely serious, and yet entirely missing from the conversation.

While drivers will bear the brunt of the fallout from a move to driverless cars, passengers and the wider public will also feel its impact.

AI cannot replace the knowledge, experience, and human connection that a skilled driver offers.

It can’t provide reassurance to a worried passenger on the way to the hospital or offer friendly local tips to a new arrival to the city.

It can’t retrieve a phone or bag left in the car or wake you up if you’ve fallen asleep after a night on the town.

More importantly AI also cannot help a disabled passenger enter and exit a car, nor can it lift heavy bags or fold up a pushchair.

It is our most vulnerable passengers who risk being left behind by driverless cars.

We also know that this technology is far from perfect, with plenty of examples from its test drives in London to back this up.

Residents in east London were woken up repeatedly by a Waymo car driving up and down their cul-de-sac in the early hours, while a Wayve car filmed itself jumping a red light while taking the firm’s CEO to Buckingham Palace.

And serious safety concerns remain.

London’s road network is famously complicated, full of chaotic junctions, roundabouts, one-way streets, and pedestrian crossings.

Jaywalking is everywhere and cycling is enormously popular, adding to the hazards on the capital’s roads.

While it’s funny to see videos of driverless car mishaps on social media, it would be decidedly less funny if that resulted in a serious accident with little to no clarity around who is liable.

As a union that has been around for almost 140 years, we understand that technology can dramatically and irreversibly change the world of work.

What we are asking for – for our driver members, for passengers, and for the wider public – is for those responsible to properly manage the introduction of driverless cars to ensure that the benefits extend beyond company chief executives to the whole of society.

The current muddled approach could put thousands of drivers out of work with no opportunities for reskilling or redeployment, which doesn’t serve anyone.

GMB has called on TfL and the government to urgently take responsibility for developing a plan that protects drivers and holds operators accountable for the disruption that these services will ultimately cause.

Until a plan is put in place to ensure a fair transition and support drivers, it is premature to move to driverless services.

• Matthew Wright is GMB London regional organiser.