Neighbors Hate Waymo Horn Hassles

Waymo engineers had noticed that the company’s automated ride-hailing robotaxis sometimes get backed into by drivers who don’t see them. The solution seemed simple: program the cars to toot their horns when other vehicles get close, providing a heads up to those drivers who might accidentally back into them.

Neighbors of the company’s San Francisco depot where the cars return overnight report that what they are also doing is honking relentlessly at each other as hordes of the cars crowd into the same parking lot in the wee hours.

“The cars are robotic and they are honking at each other and there is no one in the cars when it is happening,” remarked resident Chris Cherry to San Francisco NBC-TV affiliate KNTV. “What’s happening? That’s absurd.”

“Over the past two weeks I’ve been woken up more times overnight than I have combined over 20 years,” resident Russell Pofsky told San Francisco ABC-TV affiliate KGO-TV. “It is tough. It affects the way you feel,” he said.

The cars didn’t suddenly go full New York City cab driver mode. Rather, they’re trying to prevent fender benders, according to Waymo spokesman Chris Bonelli. He provided the company’s official statement on the matter:

"We recently introduced a useful feature to help avoid low speed collisions by honking if other cars get too close while reversing toward us. 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."

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Waymo’s chief product officer, Saswat Panigrahi, posted a video depicting a Waymo car giving the driver of a backing trash truck a heads-up honk before backing up to provide the truck extra space.

The company says that a software update has resolved the problem, but the situation is a low-stakes reminder of the law of unintended consequences when applied to automated systems, pointing to the need for rigorous standards for such software to prevent more hazardous unintended effects in the future.

The IEEE P2846 standard aims to provide that safety net, but such standards are works in progress and this situation is a reminder of the need for continued work.