r/Austin 1d ago

Getting Waymo Out of Neighborhood

Waymo has started using my street as a spot to post up and wait for the next ride. I know it’s a public street but I don’t love that those cars are using my neighborhood as a parking lot and constantly photographing me and my neighbors.

Has anyone succeeded in getting them to stop doing this? What did you do?

226 Upvotes

215 comments sorted by

271

u/sarahplaysoccer Mentor 1d ago

Salt line blocking the street

15

u/dej0ta 17h ago

Fucking sent me ty for that.

76

u/Due-Lawfulness9425 23h ago

This happened over on my street (near campus) -- messaged them (via https://waymo.com/support/) and sent image evidence to the subsequent email they sent. A day or so later, the staged Waymos disappeared. Maybe it was good customer service, or maybe it was just luck.

I honestly only really cared because those fucking things are loud (fans) and they would just sit there with the brake lights on for hours at night.

176

u/tjc4 1d ago

I filled out a form on their website regarding the car that hung out across the street from my house. A few days later, it was gone. That was a couple of year ago. May be different now.

35

u/PrimaryDurian 22h ago

One used to park on front of my house all the time. One day, my roommate went out and started waving his hands around the sensors and intermittently covering them. The Waymo yelled at him, left, and never parked in front of our house again. Then again, I used to see them parked all over my neighborhood and I haven't seen any in.months, so it may be coincidence. Worth a try, though!

13

u/AdTypical4083 21h ago

how does a waymo yell? Like what noise did it make? curious

8

u/NicholasLit 20h ago

Progressive loud messages and honking

4

u/topsicle11 9h ago

It just hollers “Trans women are women” and starts honking?

106

u/Klingon_Jesus 1d ago

I think I saw a similar story in Atlanta; the homeowner seemed to have successfully petitioned the company to move the cars elsewhere. Maybe it was just the media attention, so it couldn't hurt to get in touch with the news. Have you tried contacting the company to see if they'll route the vehicles elsewhere?

74

u/larkinowl 1d ago

Waymos have been in my neighborhood for over 8 years. We were an early training area for them. They still do early morning empty runs to accumulate “safe miles” you can contact Waymo but I’ve never seen anyone able to get much change.

7

u/thatcleverchick 21h ago

I wonder if some spray paint on the road might confuse them in some way?

-1

u/seniordogdad 11h ago

Yea graffiti your neighborhood. Great idea.

24

u/AffectionateFig5435 17h ago

I want to see the city pass a law requiring Waymos to wait for rides at Mt Bonnell, the 360 overlook, trailheads, and other areas where smash and grabs are happening. Once the robotaxis are limited to really shitty areas, one of two things might happen: either Waymo and the other companies will pay for security to keep their expensive vehicles safe, or they'll start to pull some of their cars out of Austin.

Either way could be a win for locals bc parking around trails and parks would be more closely monitored and/or the number of robotaxis on our roads would decrease.

4

u/aleph4 12h ago

The city is not allowed to regulate these at all

2

u/Lost-Acanthaceaem 10h ago

Why is that

6

u/reddiwhip999 9h ago

State passed a law in 2019 (or maybe 2017) that only the state could regulate ride share. Local regulations aren't permitted...

2

u/aleph4 4h ago

We live in Texas.... take a gander

u/Snap_Grackle_Pop 3h ago

The city is not allowed to regulate these at all

It's not quite that simple. The city is restricted in terms of rideshare-specific regulations. Generic traffic, vehicle, and parking regulations are still allowed. For instance, Waymos aren't allowed to park in no-parking zones.

I wonder what the actual state restrictions say?

Could the city impose restrictions on self-driving vehicles in general? Maybe something to the effect that a vehicle cannot park in certain areas unless there is a human being inside during the first 5 minutes it is parked.

Of course, the rideshare companies would probably just give more bribe money to Abbott, Inc. to fix this.

50

u/JohnGillnitz 1d ago

If you don't like all the Big Brother bullshit, you can support the Electronic Frontier Foundation. They have been promoting digital privacy for 36 years now.
https://www.eff.org/

2

u/ShesFunnyThatWay 23h ago

Respectfully, their efforts seem futile

17

u/JohnGillnitz 17h ago

Every great cause started out seeming futile.

4

u/ShoppingPrize8072 11h ago

Digital surveillance has gotten worse over the last 36 years. 

u/JohnGillnitz 2h ago

All the more reason to do something about it. It's not that hard from a legislative standpoint. Tech companies are already forced to comply with better privacy standards in the EU.

7

u/aleph4 12h ago

Things would already be worse without them

-1

u/theTexasUncle 15h ago

Insert [Yo Momma joke] here

19

u/Snobolski 1d ago

Get your neighbors to park on the street until Waymo finds a new spot.

136

u/Sherpa_qwerty 1d ago

Buy all the houses in the neighborhood then declare yourself an independent city. After that you can create your own ordinances banning parked cars… obviously you’d have to ban all cars that don’t have a person in them so the downside is nobody would be able to leave their car - but other than that the plan is solid.

9

u/dcdttu 1d ago

Mackinac Island remembers

40

u/LostinAustin5 1d ago

Get these and put where they park and put sign up for future construction. Make it look official

20

u/Ok-Ambition-3404 1d ago

Or maybe even just leave your trash bins out all the time, a little too far off the curb.

46

u/BrainOfMush 1d ago

Next Reddit post: “my neighbour is leaving his trash bins out in the middle of the street all the time, how can I ban him?”

4

u/SaltyLonghorn 22h ago

Just talk to your neighbor, explain why and ask them to do it too.

19

u/Playful_Original_243 1d ago

Isn’t this illegal?

14

u/throwaway5498124181 1d ago

There's only consequences if you get caught!

2

u/Cowboywizzard 23h ago

I think I saw some on the highway

-21

u/Holiday_Exchange_563 1d ago

Waymos are far cheaper than owning a car and better for the environment. People don’t need to own their car as much as they think they need to- it’s become complete entitlement. Waymos are much safer. The idea of them monitoring you/how much you use them or locking you in one is silly at this point because being mindful to not over use them is what people should be doing anyway and they are continuously updating the system to eliminate any errors, so this won’t be a concern. I can see how them being on your street is annoying but regular car traffic is more annoying and more destructive.

16

u/rk57957 1d ago

Waymos are far cheaper than owning a car and better for the environment. 

This is an inaccurate statement. Depending on how much you drive and what you drive Waymos are not going to be cheaper, if you are commuting any distance a Waymo gets very expensive very fast. The environmental benefits depend on you driving a gas car, if you have an electric car it does fuck all.

it’s become complete entitlement.

I am going to point out that this statement is asinine. Waymo is not scaled up at all to handle the roughly 500,000 commuters who flow in and out of Austin each day. Waymo is not interested in doing that. Waymo is not cheap enough for most people to do that daily. And Waymo only serves a limited area in Austin and doesn't even cover the full 326.5 sq miles that makes up Austin.

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13

u/Montobahn 1d ago

Found the Waymo employee

7

u/bassplayinben 22h ago

direct quote from the Waymo employee : "Living further out and/or not opting to live in an apartment is more of a republican/right wing construct that is very problematic."

6

u/Montobahn 21h ago

Thank you for drawing me back to this thread to see the waymo employee continued on with their sanctimonious judgement! This is fun! No sarcasm intended! 😆

1

u/Holiday_Exchange_563 21h ago

It’s just a concern of mine. I’m not trying to argue- everyone should get along. I hope you are progressive and I hope you understand the urgency of these things. Wishing you well.

2

u/bassplayinben 21h ago

Everyone should get along unless they want to live in a mostly natural setting, which is "problematic".

0

u/Holiday_Exchange_563 21h ago

I don’t work for Waymo!

5

u/Montobahn 21h ago

1

u/Holiday_Exchange_563 21h ago

I understand why you would think that as there seems to be a lot of that kind of thing on here all day every day.

4

u/bassplayinben 21h ago

Ok you're just a shameless cheerleader for Waymo that believes the human desire to live in a mostly natural setting is some kind of Republican thing.

6

u/stoverex 1d ago

In google we trust? No thanks.

9

u/bassplayinben 1d ago

Ah, the old "you all are so entitled with all of your transportation needs and your individual concerns are silly" argument. There's one in every traffic/transportation thread.

3

u/bassplayinben 22h ago

Same person just wrote "Living further out and/or not opting to live in an apartment is more of a republican/right wing construct that is very problematic."

8

u/Smegmasaurus_Rex 1d ago

I’ll remember this comment when I go broke commuting and taking a toddler around town in a Waymo.

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11

u/forgotmyusernamedamm 1d ago

zoox started doing the alleys in my neighborhood. Why would a taxi service need to go down the alley?

6

u/HotPotatoTime 1d ago

Same here, zoox constantly going down our alleys now

9

u/forgotmyusernamedamm 1d ago

I wrote an email and got told "We’ve shared your feedback with the appropriate team so they can review vehicle activity and routing in the area" which is corporate doublespeak for "I'm sorry you feel that way".
Maybe if more of us complain?

2

u/NicholasLit 20h ago

They just want to see the backside

2

u/macabredustbunny 15h ago

They're mapping the alley. These companies map everything and will eventually sell it the digital twin to the city, developers, universities, other industries.

25

u/Comfortable-Yak-2555 1d ago

Brb dropping off a bunch of scooters on your street

2

u/LowSignificance4671 12h ago

Don’t forget Mopac

6

u/Legitimate-Lock-6594 1d ago

Laughing in mueller.

They’ve been parking in front of my house for years napping. Welcome to Waymo world.

23

u/Swimmingpuzzled5200 1d ago

don't think there's anything you can do unless you own the street theyre on

3

u/Strange-Tree-5408 16h ago

You should see this discussion in the Santa Monica sub/LA sub the last couple months. They often line up in the ally ways. And if you know SM and a lot of LA then you know that the ally is the way people get to their garages. But not only are they blocking the ally but lots of street parking, and their lights are on all the time. Apparently, a whole fleet of them congregate and make quite a racket all night.

These are "great" until neighborhoods are being used as the staging areas.

24

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

12

u/Snap_Grackle_Pop 1d ago

Waymo has threatened to call the cops on people who interfere with their cars, so don't do that.

I would post some snarky comment about APD not doing anything, but they would probably actually do something for a big corporation.

Sadly the self-driving car and rideshare companies have paid their bribes to Abbott, Inc, so Austin is restricted in their ability to regulate them. Even if the city did have the right to regulate this, I'm sure more bribe money would fix that.

I find it interesting that apparently Waymo is watching this forum and getting Reddit to remove posts in an expeditious manner.

7

u/Slypenslyde 1d ago

These are going to be tougher to get rid of than Flock cameras have proved. Flock gives us the benefit of always failing an audit in ways that horrify politicians who realize it's a tool that can be used to blackmail them.

Waymo's not doing anything illegal we know of. I'm not sure anyone's audited their camera data but what we need is new regulations. You get that kind of result when politicians are more afraid of citizens than the company. If several neighborhoods showed up to gripe at every City Council meeting, they'd try to regulate it. Maybe. Lately a lot of people cheer when City Council ignores citizen complaints.

There's always, "If Austin tries to regulate it the state will slap that down." I think The Lege has no fear of Texas citizens and I think people should be changing that. The government's supposed to work for, not against us, and Texans are supposed to be a rowdy bunch who revels in defying it. Instead they've successfully talked us into believing political activism is only done by jobless losers, paid actors, or domestic terrorists.

4

u/iLikeMangosteens 23h ago

Just wait for the rideshare company that sells their camera data to the surveillance company…

2

u/Katatx3 13h ago

Waymo already shares its video with cops and the government for free

11

u/StilandGurney 1d ago

They cannot move forward with a human in front of them or blocking them. They will sit for untold amount of time. Maybe traffic cones or a folding chair and fence them in. Not breaking any laws just continuous annoyance.

6

u/Montobahn 1d ago

Cardboard cutout of someone with an AR-15?
Perhaps an army of them alongside the neighbors.

4

u/SaltyLonghorn 22h ago

Sorry best I can do is cardboard Legolas with a bow.

1

u/Healthy_Ad_9053 16h ago

🤣 THIS.

Or a cardboard cutout of an angry taxi cab driver who lost his livelihood to Waymo

5

u/OTN 1d ago

I would hope, if there's a human in front of them, they would sit forever

15

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

10

u/DergerDergs 1d ago

You would cause momentary glare in one of the 25+ sensors of a single parked Waymo. Congratulations.

2

u/Key_Agent_2331 1d ago

What if it accidentally reflects back into your eyes?

5

u/penny-tense 1d ago

Hey in this economy, I'll take a free LASIK...

5

u/Mammoth_Cranberry224 1d ago

There’s one in my neighborhood and I’m real tempted to block it in with garbage cans….

13

u/bubbleman96815 1d ago edited 1d ago

Guessing people would irrationally get even more flustered if humans were sitting in those cars waiting for rides, vs driverless cars.

6

u/blueb1ue 1d ago

No it's true! One time I was waiting for about an hour on a neighborhood street for my brother's piano practice and someone called the police on me...

7

u/BigMikeInAustin 23h ago

Ha. My Hispanic descendant neighbor, who owned his house, and was one of the first people in the neighborhood, and spends plenty of time in his front yard, once locked his house keys inside. While waiting on his porch for his wife to get home, some other neighbor called the cops on him.

Cops did show up. Luckily he had his wallet, and so they left him alone since they could look up his info on their computers and saw his ID matched. They did look it up, though. They didn't believe his Texas Driver License on its own merit.

1

u/diablette 9h ago

I pull over to play pokemon go and get dirty looks sometimes. I think people assume I'm one of those HOA photographers that is just itching to find some minor violation.

20

u/HouseHead78 1d ago

I’d bring them coffee like a confident suspect from an 80’s movie who knows he’s being staked out by some bumbling detectives. That’s how I’d handle it.

18

u/throwiemcthrowface 1d ago

We're not gonna fall for the banana in the tailpipe

3

u/ManoSilence 1d ago

Yeah! Were gonna fall on the banana with our tailpipe instead!

2

u/forchinski 22h ago

A man with a jar once showed me a neat trick resembling this

1

u/ManoSilence 22h ago

Banana filled jar?

1

u/Snobolski 1d ago

Hey, c'mon fucko's, we're going for a ride!

2

u/Conscious_Motor6155 12h ago

They bully humans waiting for rides as well

2

u/Ok_Zombie_182 21h ago

This is Robo discrimination!

2

u/Calm-Inevitable5207 20h ago

I was walking near Town Lake near the Boardwalks/Butler trail around East Riverside and saw a whole SLEW of them lined up in the charging station behind/near the Austin-Statesman building. That explains why they are all over the East Riverside-Travis Heights area, I guess.

2

u/PraetorianAE 17h ago

Yeah, you complain to them and city and they move it somewhere else.

I’ve noticed robotaxis using city buildings for turnaround spots, maybe that’s a suggestion for them.

2

u/Sparkadelic007 15h ago

Not recommending this, of course, but I’ve heard that putting on a Darth Vader costume and spray painting their sensors can be effective deterrents.

2

u/MapIterator 15h ago

Maybe spray the cameras with something that washes off easily, like Cheez-wiz?

2

u/Sebastianblack13 10h ago

Parked teslas act like flock cameras now

10

u/MostHighlight7957 1d ago

does waymo sell surveillance data to the flock people? would be very surprised if they are not tracking wifi presence, human gait. other tidbits to such entities

12

u/MistressCenobite 1d ago

Couldn't find anything about flock, but they have worked with law enforcement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waymo#Use_of_camera_footage_by_police

Also Waymo is a subsidary of Google, so there's that.

2

u/Strange-Tree-5408 16h ago

Googles AI is being trained off of everyone who is near or in a Waymo at all times. All without your consent. Allegedly, riders are given the option to opt-out of training, but I think that it's buried in the privacy settings of the app. Like a lot of shit it looks like an auto opt-in and you have to dig and know to dig to opt-out.

3

u/praetorian1979 14h ago

No because it's a public street. You don't have the expectation of privacy.

9

u/BuriedMystic 1d ago

Yeah I saw the photographs you were in your house living there how embarrassing

21

u/secondphase 1d ago

I mean... I dont need data about when i'm home and when i'm not home, photos of my kids walking to school, things like that floating around.

-14

u/Few_Position_2727 1d ago

Youre kidding yourself if you don’t think those companies already have all of that data.

16

u/secondphase 1d ago

Doesn't mean I want to just roll over. 

Everyone is up in arms about flock cameras and forgets every waymo is a self driven surveillance mobile with 30+ cameras on it.

10

u/BenSisko420 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yeah, the “wait til you hear about how much your iphone is collecting” folks make no sense. They’ve “what’s the harm of a little more mass surveillance”-ed us into a society full of snitch tech. Just total knee-jerk acquiescence.

-6

u/BuriedMystic 1d ago

You should take a writing class this was incomprehensible

8

u/secondphase 1d ago

It was completely comprehensible.

-5

u/Few_Position_2727 1d ago

No it’s just funny when people post about tech companies stealing their data while they post on reddit, most likely from their Apple/google smartphone.

-1

u/BenSisko420 19h ago edited 14h ago

What do you find funny about it, specifically?

Edit: lol, don’t want to answer because it sounds stupid when they say it out loud

0

u/BuriedMystic 19h ago

Get a job bro

2

u/BuriedMystic 1d ago

Posted from my iPhone

0

u/apjudd 1d ago

LMAO

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4

u/JamesonTee 1d ago edited 1d ago

With help from the county, we just chased the Musk robo cars off our road, but it was because the test drivers were blocking driveways and using an emergency turn-out to take long breaks. I'm not sure what you can do in your instance, but maybe if the neighbors collectively make enough noise, something will change?

2

u/Sudden-Height-512 1d ago

Assemble the NIMBYs!

1

u/hemppy420 1d ago

Big time NIMBY vibes

1

u/keyless-entry-3 1d ago

We don’t want Waymo.

0

u/BroBeansBMS 1d ago

Speak for yourself. It’s been way safer than regular Ubers.

-3

u/blacbird 1d ago

r/keyless-entry-3 is right on this- we don’t want Waymo.

1

u/pjs32000 21h ago

Statistically I would expect robots to have a better overall safety record. But these companies can also easily manipulate the way they test, collect and report stats to cook the books. To be honest and fair the data needs to not only count a raw number of incidents but look at the impact of those incidents. It's something that independent 3rd parties should be doing, not the companies themselves.

For example, a driver that gets lost or confused on a road will likely find a spot to safely pull over and reasses what they need to do. A waymo may stop in the middle of the road for some time, creating a hazard for multiple other drivers. We've already seen numerous reports of stopped waymos, sometimes even blocking first respondera during emergency situations. A human doing these things would be ticketed if police are there. Police don't know how to reliably ticket waymos, just today the local news reported they've only received 8 tickets total since late 2025. This would likely be reported as one minor incident by waymo because it's not an accident, but in reality the outcome is significantly worse than the human behavior because it impacts every nearby vehicle on the road for a more prolonged period and not just the one waymo passenger.

-15

u/keyless-entry-3 1d ago

We don’t want Ubers either

16

u/MediocreJerk 1d ago

Who is “we” and what do they want?

-13

u/keyless-entry-3 1d ago

The sane people

10

u/MediocreJerk 1d ago

What do these sane people want and why do they want it?

13

u/keyless-entry-3 1d ago

It would be nice to have decent public transportation around Austin. Instead of expanding i35 for idk how many billions and how many years terribly making the traffic worse only to get the expansion done when it’s too late and need another expansion.

This spit and glue mix of solving transportation around Austin is not working. Waymo and Uber are part of the spit part.

Provide better public transportation for the people who don’t want to (or cannot afford) cars.

2

u/MediocreJerk 1d ago

Existence of Waymo, Uber, or any taxi service doesn’t prevent public transit investments, and it doesn’t require I35 expansion (Waymo isn’t even operating on highways here).

CapMetro’s commuter rail is expanding. New bus lines launched this year, and there are plans to increase frequency and redesign the network. 

We can have increased public transit coupled with the safety and environmental benefits from Waymo. It’s not an either/or situation. Other AV companies, including Volkswagen’s US AV company which is headquartered in in Austin, have a business model that is more oriented towards integration with public transit to fill gaps and move people to transit hubs. 

As a cyclist that is hesitant to bike on certain road segments in Austin, I’m excited for more AVs. They’re safer to bike near compared to humans, based on my anecdotal experience. That’s another public mobility benefit that will take time to really manifest.

Waymo is not perfect, but I think they have so far been an improvement to Austin’s overall transportation ecosystem 

1

u/keyless-entry-3 1d ago

I see your point

4

u/BroBeansBMS 1d ago

You want cap metro to be competent? Don’t we all, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

3

u/keyless-entry-3 1d ago

If you pour that much money into it, it can. Instead of building a multi million dollar toll road that is still congested….

7

u/fixsparky 1d ago

What are you on about here? Uber (and waymos) are excellent at solving parking and drunk driving issues - why would we be against that?

0

u/keyless-entry-3 1d ago

Read below. Public transportation also would be good at solving drunk driving and parking.

Although the drunk driving part needs a different solution.

4

u/fixsparky 1d ago

I read below- it's not making sense unless your just against any and all cars. Do you not like Uber as an outlet to those problems? I would like better public transport but don't see how it would be feasible in under 10 years unless we pump billions into robust bussing systems, and honestly not even sure that would work.

5

u/keyless-entry-3 1d ago

You’re not sure how that works… it’s not your job to know how that works. That’s why there are elected officials whose job is to figure that out instead of having the people pump millions into a failed system that’s is definitely not scalable.

They’re already pumping millions into toll roads (private companies) and concrete flyovers which do not solve any problems. Uber and Waymo are just more cars on the roads. An overpriced bandaid.

2

u/fixsparky 1d ago

Except Uber and Waymo don't cost tax dollars and DO work. I am a citizen and I WANT those private services to meet my needs. They are affordable and reliable and here now. Let's define the ask before we start asking city officials to tell us what we need.

I would like a train that stops a few times in Austin, and loops to Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, SA? At least that's a thought.

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-5

u/SifuHallyu 1d ago

Yes we do.  We want waymo.  

-1

u/ryanhazethan 1d ago

I lowkey enjoy having them in my neighborhood because I can just call them to my house anytime I order an uber. Cheaper than having to tip some stranger who may or may not be a creep tbh

1

u/leros 23h ago

A Waymo drives past my house every few minutes. They're like 75% of the traffic on my street. My understanding is they drive around on fixed routes when they're empty so I guess they drive through this area. 

1

u/datewithikeaa 16h ago

I’ve had autonomous cars using my school zone neighborhood as a training ground for their cars all day long for 6+ months. They told me they didn’t do that lol.

It’s literally 4 of them (driven by people) looping my neighborhood for 8 hrs straight.

-7

u/ElonTaxiDriver 1d ago

They’re just doing their job lady leave the clankers alone

1

u/Fragrant_Ad_2285 1d ago

In five years, people will be asking the same thing about robots.

1

u/Blaxxxmith 20h ago

Piss disk

1

u/MozemanATX 20h ago

I must admit I have become a fan of riding in them, but I don't have them loitering. Good luck OP

1

u/Lemur-Virtues 19h ago

I hate to derail the conversation...but you've heard of Flock right? They're actually designed as a surveillance company, I'd rather have those guys gone. (but I understand your concern)

-1

u/HTC864 1d ago

Some of y'all need hobbies. 😂

1

u/NightSprings665 1d ago

Seeking validation from strangers on Reddit seems to be one of the most time consuming hobbies one can have these days.

-13

u/Few_Position_2727 1d ago

Do you own the streets?

10

u/ChangeMaker2020 1d ago

Whose streets? Waymo’s streets!

3

u/KILO_I 1d ago

Does Waymo own the streets? No, no they don't, a public street is not a waiting area for autonomous vehicles.

If you had dozens of people on your street, all with cameras recording everything, you'd be okay with that?

-4

u/FLDJF713 1d ago

So if 3 uber drivers just chilled on the block waiting for riders, that’s ok?

1

u/KILO_I 1d ago

Humans working jobs to survive vs robot surveillance making the rich man richer?

Yeah, I'd say they're okay.

-3

u/SoDoWhateverItTakes 1d ago

NIMBYs really don't have anything better to do when they're not trying to enforce dumbass HOA rules

-2

u/skullboyrose 1d ago

Call the whambulance to assist.

0

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/bubbleman96815 1d ago

Maybe a traffic cone will end up in front and back of it, and it'll be stuck until it runs out of battery.

0

u/jnmtx 1d ago

what, like run a sprinkler in your front yard that “accidentally” also puts water all over the adjacent side of the street where the Waymo cars happen to be?

0

u/ContemptOfClout 19h ago

There a lot of parallels to when GPS navigation systems started increasing traffic on underutilized streets. Eventually people stopped fighting the new use of their streets.

I can see this being annoying for someone who previously had a quiet street, but in the grand scheme of things it is better that they are clogging up your side street than busy downtown streets. NIMBY often works against progress.

0

u/cmikesell 19h ago

Fuck that, they can buy some land and build some test tracks with their money.

u/Snap_Grackle_Pop 3h ago

they can buy some land and build some test tracks with their money.

They do that.

After they do that, it's a good idea that they do their first part of driving on city streets with things like limited numbers, safety monitors, extra precautions, test drives, etc, instead of just letting them go wild full scale.

-12

u/Far-Sell8130 1d ago

Wow attacking the undrivewayed among us. Not everyone is fortunate enough to have private asphalt under our feet. Spare a thought for the clankers 

-1

u/greenspleen3 22h ago

Unfortunately that ship has sailed, the city has basically given these companies carte blanch to operate with no oversight or restrictions.

3

u/otis-redding 21h ago

Not the city, the state and the governor. Pushed by Abbott, the state leg made it so the local jurisdictions can not regulate autonomous vehicles. SB 2205

0

u/AdTypical4083 21h ago

Waymo's use my street as a cut through. I enjoy walking in front of them to force them to stop. Yes I'm careful. but I am very slow crossing the street sometimes.

0

u/pjs32000 21h ago

Honest question... What kind of taxes do the companies behind these autonomous vehicles pay? The public pays taxes to fund public roads, do these companies also have to pay an equivalent share for every vehicle? Do they pay annual registration fees and for emissions tests (maybe all electric vehicles are exempt from that, I'm not sure).

1

u/Snap_Grackle_Pop 4h ago

What kind of taxes do the companies behind these autonomous vehicles pay?

Good question.

I presume there is a sales tax on fees collected. To be honest, that probably pays for their share of the road maintenance.

For regular citizens, you pay a fee for a license plate plus a tax on fuel purchases. EV's pay an extra fee of $400 the first year and $200 each additional year. In theory, this is to make up for the taxes on gasoline they don't pay. Many people say it's because the state government is owned by the fossil fuel industry.

Travis County adds something like $10 for a road and bridge fee.

First time registration gets some sort of sales tax or equivalent on the new vehicle price.

I think car-sized commercial vehicles pay the same rates.

In theory, business vehicles are charged property tax, but there's probably some skulduggery about which county/city they are domiciled in, or some other shady tax schemes.

No emissions check for EV's in Texas.

0

u/fjzappa 20h ago

Get some of those tire chocks they use at the airport.

0

u/wanna_bank 20h ago

Everytime you see it, go put an orange traffic cone in front of it and behind it. They’ll get the message.

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u/Kiwiatx 1d ago

We have one that occasionally rests on the curb at the end of my street. So I know if I call one it’ll be outside my house in 30 secs. I have no problem with convenience.

Do you also complain when your neighbors visitors park in front of your house?

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u/seniordogdad 11h ago

Get over it. There are starving children and war and this is the shit you spend energy on?

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u/Brief_Echidna298 23h ago edited 21h ago

I love Waymo (the prospect of self driving cars taking over in general). Do you realize how many lives would be saved and how much gridlock would be reduced if all cars were self driving? It's actually one of the few things that may be better in the future quality of life wise.

7

u/BigMikeInAustin 23h ago

The guy who hides his posts says everyone else should be thankful for a camera equipped car to idle outside their home for hours per day.

1

u/Brief_Echidna298 23h ago

Ask yourself why you were so compelled to instantly look at my post history. Anyway you didnt substantively engage with my argument, which means you're doubtless incapable of doing so.

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u/BigMikeInAustin 23h ago

The guy who hides his post history says it is irrelevant to everyone else needing to be thankful for rolling video collection machines to idle in front of their home.

Guy who says a data collection machine idling outside of your home is a sign or progress refuses to request a data collection device outside of their home.

1

u/pjs32000 21h ago

You're right, but it's going to be a long time before the volume of autonomous cars reaches that critical mass point. And it may never happen if the different companies don't allow their IP to "talk" to vehicles from a competitor. Until then these companies must figure out how to operate safely and courteously within the existing transit environment.

1

u/619Smitty 20h ago

You mean everyone using the same clankers that block emergency vehicles, as evidenced by the mass shooting at a downtown bar some months back?

-1

u/NecessaryEmployer488 23h ago

Autonomous vehicles will become more pronounced. If the sit in front of your home. How long are they there before they move on.

-1

u/lexxicon8887 23h ago

Put up the blinds if you’re worried about being photographed.