San Francisco neighbors who live in a building next to a Waymo parking lot are still bothered by honking horns all night long. While the ride-hailing company’s solution appears to solve the original problem – cars honking in parking lots – it also shows that the problem is a little trickier than it first appears.
Waymo said last week that the honking sound was the result of a safety feature being triggered when a Waymo car detected another vehicle reversing. Sophia Tung, who broadcasts live on YouTube, tells us edge In an email, she said the first night after Waymo released the patch, several cars missed the parking lot and inexplicably ended up on the cul-de-sac next to her building. In the video we watched, vehicles backed up on a cul-de-sac and started honking.
The company quickly “completely disabled Dead End and hosted an ice cream social for us to calm things down,” Dong said. Everything was quiet for a few days afterward, she added.
But the robo-taxi went to another extreme early this morning, when enough people turned back immediately to cause queues to enter the parking lot. When one of the cars backed up into other cars waiting on the road, who seemed unaffected by parking restrictions, it set off a chain reaction of Waymo vehicles backing up, causing the next car in line to honk their horns. ,etc.
Tung said she has contacted Waymo about the new round of horns. She’s also scheduled to speak with Vishay Nihalani, Waymo’s director of product management and operations, during a livestream tomorrow starting at 5:30 p.m. ET.
Waymo did not immediately respond to our request for comment.
