City site visitors can get fairly congested, however hardly anybody would anticipate an limitless stream of self-driving automobiles flocking to one quiet residential road. Except, that’s what’s taking place to at least one dead-end road in San Francisco, in line with a local KPIX report.

The road in query is positioned in San Francisco’s Richmond district on fifteenth Avenue. The Waymo automobiles purportedly come in any respect hours of the day, drive down the dead-end, make a multi-point flip after which return the best way they got here. (You can see them doing this within the KPIX video.) A short time later, one other Waymo automotive will come and do the very same factor. Occasionally, in line with the KPIX report, there’ll be a queue of confused Waymo automobiles. One resident stated there will be as many as 50 Waymo automobiles displaying up throughout the day and that the odd parade of self-driving automobiles has been happening for no less than six to eight weeks.

As for why the automobiles are doing this, it’s anybody’s guess. Residents instructed KPIX that they requested the drivers, however have been instructed that the automobiles have been “programmed” and that they have been simply doing their jobs. So far, nobody has reported seeing certainly one of these automobiles dropping off or selecting up a passenger. Waymo didn’t give a motive to KPIX. Gizmodo additionally reached out to Waymo for remark however didn’t obtain a direct response.

Waymo, which is owned by Google father or mother firm Alphabet, first launched its totally driverless ride-hailing service in Phoenix, Arizona. It then expanded that program to San Francisco earlier this summer time. Around the identical time, the corporate additionally introduced that it will cease promoting its lidar sensors to different industries in favor of specializing in its self-driving automobiles and providers.

The truth is driverless automobiles nonetheless haven’t received over most of the people simply but. A 2020 AAA customer survey discovered that solely 12% of drivers stated they might belief a driverless automobile whereas they have been in it. Another 28% stated they have been uncertain how they felt. Given that, even a comparatively innocent story like this isn’t precisely encouraging. Sure, the Waymo automobiles on this occasion are simply confused—however it’s already annoying sufficient when your Uber or Lyft driver will get circled. At least then you may speak to your driver. It’s much less clear how navigational snafus like it will play out in a driverless future—or if this sort of choice for one random road may result in sudden congestion the place there shouldn’t be any. In any case, Waymo stated final yr that it was constructing an entire pretend metropolis to enhance testing on its self-driving automobiles. Incredibly comforting.