San Francisco Residents Fed Up With Self-Driving Cars That Won’t Stop Honking at Each Other
The driverless vehicles are stationed in a parking lot when they aren’t making trips or charging up.
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Residents of a San Francisco neighborhood are expressing frustration over the disturbances caused by driverless taxis, operated by Waymo.
The autonomous vehicles reportedly have been circling the area with their lights on, creating a cacophony of incessant beeping, much to the dismay of the locals.
The driverless vehicles are stationed in a parking lot when they aren’t making trips or charging up. The vehicles are programmed to honk when approaching other cars, so as the lot becomes more crowded, the noise increases.
Initially welcomed as a technological marvel when they arrived in July, the driverless cars have turned to nuisance for many residents.
“I was happy to see the Waymos coming in, but this aspect of it, I’m not a fan,” a local resident who says he first noticed the disturbances at 4 a.m. two weeks ago, Randol White, tells Los Angeles Times.
Despite reaching out to Waymo, he says he feels there’s little he can do to stop the disruptions. “That’s the most frustrating thing, you’re just yelling into the void,” he says.
Waymo has acknowledged the issue, saying, “We have identified the cause and are in the process of implementing a fix.”
“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,” a spokesman told the New York Times.