In movies, the attack of autonomous creations to destroy humanity comes with spectacular drama.
In San Francisco, it is just a beeping, endless string of sleepless nights.
“Over the past two weeks I’ve been woken up more times overnight than I have combined over 20 years,” San Francisco resident Russell Pofsky said, according to KGO-TV.
“It’s just really, really… it’s tough. It affects the way you feel,” Pofsky said.
The culprit is a parking lot where Waymo autonomous vehicles are parked. Waymo advertises itself as an “autonomous driving technology” that it claims helps people navigate the streets of San Francisco safely.
But at night, Waymo vehicles honk at one another, beginning for a reason known only to them and ending on similar grounds, according to KGO.
Imagine being woken up at 4 a.m. by cars honking at each other. That’s what some San Francisco residents have been dealing with for weeks, as the Waymos can be heard in this video honking and blinking headlights in a parking lot outside of their condo. https://t.co/2cVmDfUk4i pic.twitter.com/pkxNTT5vXd
— ABC7 News (@abc7newsbayarea) August 13, 2024
Randol White recalled his discovery of the problem.
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“I was like, where is that coming from? And I looked down, and I was like, I think it’s coming from the Waymo cars,” White said.
First came a 4 a.m. session.
“But then it happened again, and again, and I started thinking, well this is an issue,” White said.
Christopher Cherry who lives near the lot, said the nesting Waymo vehicles seemed to take on a life of their own, according to KNTV-TV.
“We started out with a couple of honks here and there, and then as more and more cars started to arrive, the situation got worse, ” Cherry said, noting the 4 a.m. is peak honking time.
“It’s very distracting during the work day, but most importantly it wakes you up at four in the morning,” he said.
“The cars are robotic and they’re honking at each other and there’s no one in the cars when it’s happening, and that’s absurd,” Cherry said.
Because the cars have no driver there is no way to ask one of the cars to please shut up.
“I think the most frustrating thing about this is that there is just nobody to talk to, and even at the corporate level, I am finding it difficult, [if] not impossible,” White said.
According to The Verge, Waymo says it is bringing peace back to the neighborhood.
Waymo representative Chris Bonelli said the path to chaos was paved with good intentions.
“We recently introduced a useful feature to help avoid low-speed collisions by honking if other cars get too close while reversing toward us,” he said.
“It has been working great in the city, but we didn’t quite anticipate it would happen so often in our own parking lots. We’ve updated the software, so our electric vehicles should keep the noise down for our neighbors moving forward,” Bonelli said.
