These Waymo self-driving taxis are honking all night and waking up the neighborhood

Who would have thought that a base of autonomous taxis could cause so much chaos? Normally, without humans, the comings and goings of robotaxis should not create any nuisance. The problem is that while waiting for the demand for rides to increase, some vehicles do whatever they want.

Several times a day, residents of buildings near a San Francisco parking garage are disturbed by untimely honking, especially when it happens at 4 a.m. That’s what motivated a student named Sophia Tung to film and comment on the scene on social media, as reported by The Verge.

But why do these autonomous taxis honk?

While these self-driving taxis are doing pretty well navigating the streets of San Francisco, the vehicles seem to have a bit more trouble understanding each other’s maneuvers when it comes to parking in their backup lot.

The first vehicles that enter the parking lot park without difficulty, but when the parking lot fills up and several autonomous taxis enter at the same time, the comical scenes begin to take place. The vehicles follow each other a few meters from each other. As soon as one starts to engage reverse gear to park, the others stop abruptly, and also find themselves backing up as a precaution. Except that before engaging reverse gear, there is a horn blast. Which means that there can be as many horn blasts in a row as there are vehicles engaged in the parking lot.

The worst part is that the autonomous vehicles drive around in circles before choosing a spot. In some cases filmed by the student, they almost all get stuck.

A situation that Waymo will correct

While the show is quite funny to watch on video, we can imagine that the neighbors in the parking lot do not have the same experience. Especially since these nighttime horn honking sessions can last for an hour, the time it takes for all the autonomous taxis to find a place and stop moving.

Asked by the media The Verge, Waymo representative Chris Bonelli indicated that the company is ” aware that in some scenarios vehicles may sound their horns briefly while navigating through parking lots. » Waymo will work to address this behavior of autonomous vehicles.

In the meantime, autonomous vehicles are not going to replace humans any time soon. There is still progress to be made before we acquire a little more common sense. But if you find the spectacle entertaining, know that Sophia Tung has set up a live broadcast on YouTube. Most of the time, the parking lot is quite quiet, but at a few hours of the day or night, it comes alive and becomes a joyful bazaar. That’s also San Francisco.