Santa Monica neighbors are bothered by autonomous vehicles. Waymo, a branch of Alphabet (Google’s parent company), has increased its number of vehicles and a charging station was built in Euclid & Broadway. This is the main reason for Santa Monica neighbors’ complaints, there is a lot of noise pollution and nobody has thought about these neighbors. So, they decided to take action on their own and Christopher Potter created a Change.org petition to demand answers. In the meantime, authorities like California Public Utilities Commission and California Department of Motor Vehicles stated this issue had nothing to do with them.
This controversy shows the current issue between technological innovation and quality of life in urban communities of California. So, let’s see if this issue will have a solution.
Santa Monica neighbors v. Waymo’s robotaxis
In the north of Los Angeles, Santa Monica neighbors are experiencing a nightmare with Waymo’s autonomous robotaxis. At the beginning, every technological advance seems great, but when negative consequences are affecting your surroundings it is not that great. What neighbors are complaining about is the non-stop noise pollution and the lack of transparency from institutions, because they feel left out by authorities.
Noise pollution
The level of noise these autonomous vehicles produce, it’s bothering neighbors day and night. These noises include honks, flashing lights being activated with no need, and the annoying ‘’beep-beep-beep’’ these vehicles emit when they change into reverse. What’s more, the noise coming from charging stations which are open at night increases in these areas.
Can you imagine being at your home, resting and suddenly you start hearing all these things? This neighborhood has lost every bit of tranquility possible.
Who is responsible for this?
Apart from the noise issue, neighbors are fed up with feeling ignored by authorities when they ask for answers on who authorized the Waymo services in this community.
Santa Monica local authorities told them to contact the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and the Department of Motor Vehicles in Sacramento. Once the neighbors did this, these two authorities said the robotaxis regulation is not within their jurisdiction and the solution was to go back to local authorities and also talk with Waymo company.
So, the affected people were trying to find a solution, but the ones who could give it to them were just passing the buck to each other. How could citizens feel they will be taken into consideration when this is what they have to deal with?
Neighbors taking action on their own
After experiencing every authority wasn’t giving any answer nor proposing any solution, neighbors decided to start a nocturnal protest called ‘’stacking’’. This meant placing an adhesive tape on the robotaxis’ sensors to block them from moving, and place obstacles near these vehicles to block them on the way to charging stations.
Now the name of the protest makes more sense, since there was a stack of robotaxis that couldn’t move. This might seem silly, but it was the only way possible to get rid of noises at night without causing any material damages or fights.
Technological advance or… maybe not
This situation could be taken as a great example of what’s happening when technology invades people’s daily life, without any survey on neighbors to know how well these vehicles would match this area. Of course Waymo’s autonomous vehicles are a huge technological advance that can be used for further products and uses, but the important thing is to ask citizens whenever something new is going to be implemented.
Having this situation in mind, it doesn’t sound so bad moving somewhere there’s no technology. Let’s hope this situation reaches a good conclusion because it must be a bummer not being able to have a nice rest at night. How would you react if this happened to you?