The honking thing specifically is another skewed fact. The neighbors want the Waymos, they just had a hard time getting ahold of the right folks at Waymo. That includes Sophia Tung, the neighbor who set up the honking video stream that Jason used.
As a local in the area, I can say for certain that the majority of SF wants the cars there. There's more resistance further down the peninsula, but it's intermixed with anti-taxi messaging. It's hard to tell if it's about the cars or about "those kind of people" having access to their city.
San Francisco neighbors say repeated Waymo honking is keeping them up at night
Christopher Cherry who lives in the building next door said he was "really excited" to have Waymo in the neighborhood, thinking it would bring more security and quiet to the area.
The residents who spoke with NBC Bay Area said they are not opposed to having the Waymo cars nearby. But they say they want to see a more neighborly response from the new autonomous vehicle company on the block.
"We love having them there, we just would like for them to stop honking their horn at four in the morning repeatedly," Cherry said.
San Francisco neighbors say Waymo honking continues, global audience follows along live
The incidents were captured on resident Sophia Tung's YouTube live stream
Tung and many of her neighbors said that they are Waymo customers and actually like the Waymo technology. But what they don't like is the repeated, overnight noise.
Studies have shown that blinking lights improve reaction time to bikes on the road. The most common issue is determining the distance to the bike. This effect is more pronounced during night.
That's why I use my bike lights all the time set to blink with a multi-second on phase. It makes me more noticeable and easy to estimate distance.
Also cars do have blinking lights these days. The newer car models like to blink the center brake light for a second before going static. Motorbikes have also long had rear blinking and "breathing" front light.