Self-driving Waymo cars keep SF residents awake all night by honking at each other [Ars Technica]

Haunted by glitching algorithms, self-driving cars disturb the peace in San Francisco.

Enlarge / A Waymo self-driving car in front of Google’s San Francisco headquarters, San Francisco, California, June 7, 2024. (credit: Getty Images)

Silicon Valley’s latest disruption? Your sleep schedule. On Saturday, NBC Bay Area reported that San Francisco’s South of Market residents are being awakened throughout the night by Waymo self-driving cars honking at each other in a parking lot. No one is inside the cars, and they appear to be automatically reacting to each other’s presence.

Videos provided by residents to NBC show Waymo cars filing into the parking lot and attempting to back into spots, which seems to trigger honking from other Waymo vehicles. The automatic nature of these interactions—which seem to peak around 4 am every night—has left neighbors bewildered and sleep-deprived.

According to NBC, the disturbances began several weeks ago when Waymo vehicles started using a parking lot off 2nd Street near Harrison Street. Residents in nearby high-rise buildings have observed the autonomous vehicles entering the lot to pause between rides, but the cars’ behavior has become a source of frustration for the neighborhood.

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