"At first I actually found it really funny, these cars are honking at each other. I don't find it funny anymore."

Feeling Horny

Being a driver in a big city means you're probably going to use your horn — a lot.

And now, weeks after debuting rides to the entire public, Waymo robotaxis in San Francisco have started honking excessively, too — except they're not doing it on the streets, but while trying to navigate the complicated terrain that is a local parking lot.

Just ask the bleary-eyed people who live right next to the ruckus, like Randol White, a resident of San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood, who complains that the rowdy robotaxis have been making noise around the clock. He's been woken up in the middle of the night multiple times by the self-driving cars, he claims, and on one occasion, at 4 am.

"At first I actually found it really funny, these cars are honking at each other," White told the Los Angeles Times. "I don't find it funny anymore."

And neither do his neighbors.

"Over the past two weeks I've been woken up more times overnight than I have combined over 20 years," Russell Pofsky, who lives in a building next to White, told ABC7 News.

Cab Cluster

Waymo, a subsidiary of Google, has been a leader in self-driving technology over the last fifteen years. Last month, it hit a milestone by opening up its robotaxi service to everyone in San Francisco, when before it was limited to a waitlist.

So all eyes are on Waymo right now — and apparently, all ears are, too. Beyond all the honking, of course, there's also plenty of back-up beeping and flashing lights.

The robotaxis appear to have taken over the lot right after Waymo's expanded rollout. And while they may be capable navigators on the streets, they have yet to master parking.

Footage of the event circulating on social media shows a gaggle of them trying to get past a few robotaxis pulling into a parking space, others trying to pull out — and all of them slowing to a crawl.

Driving People Nuts

The self-driving company told the LA Times that it's "aware that in some scenarios our vehicles may briefly honk while navigating our parking lots," and added that it's working on a fix.

White, who didn't hear back from Waymo when he reached out, had a few choice words about that characterization of the issue.

"If briefly means multiple times a day, at all hours of the day and night," he told the LA Times, "it's not briefly."

We've already seen robotaxis screw up in similar ways before, like causing silly, avoidable traffic jams, or even driving on the wrong side of the road.

These are some of the inevitable growing pains you might expect from rolling out such experimental technology. But if Waymo isn't careful, it could tick off its potential customers before they even climb inside one of its rides.

"I was happy to see the Waymos coming in," White told the LA Times. "But this aspect of it, I'm not a fan."

More on robotaxis: Waymo Suing People Who Allegedly Trashed Its Robotaxis


Share This Article