Yahoo Autos Robotaxis Are Keeping People Up At Night In San Francisco
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For weeks now residents in a San Francisco neighborhood have been kept awake at all hours of the night by Waymo robotaxis honking at each other repeatedly. It’s just the latest in a string of inconveniences and dangerous situations resulting from the driverless car experiment being conducted in the city.
Watch a drug dealer in a Chevy Tahoe push cops around.
People in Soma have been complaining about the Jaguar I-Paces outfitted by Waymo with driverless tech honking at each other as the robotaxis converge on a specific parking lot. People who live nearby have complained about sleep disrupted.
Yet one man who talked to local station ABC7 about the problem says he’s still a big fan of Waymo. He even hails rides from the robotaxis regularly.
Waymo reached out to ABC7 and said the honking was caused by a software update designed to prevent low-speed crashes. With the vehicles all crowded together as they try parking for the night, that’s triggering the safety feature. The company is working on a software update to fix the problem.
Robotaxis have caused a growing of problems both in San Francisco and in other cities where they’re allowed to operate, especially if no human is monitoring from the driver’s seat. This includes autonomous vehicles driving the wrong way, hitting other cars, stopping and blocking traffic, driving into active first responder scenes, running over dogs/people, and even wandering into construction areas.
In San Francisco there has been an active anti-robotaxi movement. Some have taken it upon themselves to sabotage the vehicles, like putting a traffic cone on the hood or all-out trashing them so they can no longer operate.
We don’t expect Waymo fixing the software issue will smooth everything out for San Francisco residents. Living in a driverless car experiment has to be tiresome, especially when things really break down like this.
Image via ABC7 News Bay Area
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