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Google’s Self-Driving Car Gyre

Folks who live on 15th Avenue in the Richmond district of San Francisco report that an abnormal number of Google’s self-driving cars are ending up swirling around at the end of their street.

“I noticed it while I was sleeping,” says Jennifer King. “I awoke to a strange hum and I thought there was a spacecraft outside my bedroom window.”

The visitors Jennifer King is talking about don’t just come at night. They come all day, right to the end of 15th Avenue, where there’s nothing else to do but make some kind of multi-point turn and head out the way they came in. Not long after that car is gone, there will be another, which will make the same turn and leave, before another car shows up and does the exact same thing. And while there are some pauses, it never really stops.

“There are some days where it can be up to 50,” King says of the Waymo count. “It’s literally every five minutes. And we’re all working from home, so this is what we hear.”

(via geoff manaugh)