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Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

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Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#421

Post by GoatInGrey »

RomanPushkin wrote: post #412

Will post it here: > In October 2025, a Waymo autonomous robotaxi struck and killed KitKat, a well-known bodega cat at Randa's Market in San Francisco's Mission District, sparking debates over self-driving car safety It's a child now. All I wanna ask - what should happen, so they stop killing pets and people?

The real but contentious answer is to change our street and urban design. You can only do so much to make a giant metal machine safe for children and small animals to be struck by. Reducing the frequency of cars and pedestrians occupying the same space will go further than trying to engineer the equivalent of a pool that is impossible to drown in.

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#422

Post by coryrc »

fennecbutt wrote: post #181
coryrc wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, it's still the automobile's fault. At least it was already slowed down to 17 mph to start. Remember that viral video of some Australian in a pickup ragdolling a girl across the road? Most every comment is "well he was going the speed limit no fault for him!" No asshole, you hit someone. It's your fault. He got zero charges and the girl was seriously injured.

You mean the Aussie one where the guy was going an appropriate speed for the area and when the cops arrived the parents and their neighbors LIED TO THE POLICE and said he was hooning down the road at excess speed and hit the kid? And that he was only saved from prison by having a dash cam that proved the lies to be lies? That one? That logic is utter bs, if someone jumps out when you're travelling at an appropriate s…

[flagged]

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#423

Post by thewebguyd »

jeffbee wrote: post #166
yibg wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how that's feasible without introducing a lot of friction. Near my house, almost the entire trip from the freeway to my house is via a single lane with parked cars on the side. I would have to drive 10 MPH the entire way (speed limit is 25, so 2.5x as long).

I mean, you are putting your finger right on the answer: the whole car thing doesn't work or make sense, and trying to make autonomous vehicles solve the unsolvable is never going to succeed.

Agreed.

Car culture in the US is toxic, and a lot of accidents and fatalities are a result of how poorly designed our infrastructure is. We design for cars, not for people (just one more lane bro, will totally fix traffic. Nevermind that a train can move double the capacity of that entire line of traffic).

Cars are the wrong solution, particularly in urban areas. A self driving car is still a car, and comes along with all the same problems that cars cause.

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#424

Post by shawabawa3 »

Veserv wrote: post #306

Absent more precise information, this is a statistical negative mark for Waymo putting their child pedestrian injury rate at ~2-4x higher than the US human average. US human drivers average ~3.3 trillion miles per year [1]. US human drivers cause ~7,000 child pedestrian injurys per year [2]. That amounts to a average of 1 child pedestrian injury per ~470 million miles. Waymo has done ~100-200 million fully autonomous…

> child pedestrian injury rate at ~2-4x higher than the US human average.

If this incident had happened with a human driven vehicle would it even have been reported?

I don't know exactly what a 6mph collision looks like but I think it's likely the child had nothing more than some bruises and if a human has done it they would have just said sorry, made sure they were ok, and left

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#425

Post by ra7 »

moktonar wrote: post #397

The Waymo driver tech is impressive. That said an experienced driver might have recognized the pattern where a stopped big vehicle occludes a part of the road leading to such situation, and might have stopped or slowed down almost to a halt before passing. The Waymo driver reacts faster but is not able to predict such scenarios by filling the gaps, simulating the world to inform decisions. Chapeau to Waymo anyways

There have been many instances of Waymo preventing a collision by predicting pedestrians emerging from occlusion. This isn’t new information at all for them. Some accidents are simply physically impossible to prevent. I don’t know for sure if this one was one of those, but I’m fairly confident it couldn’t have been from prediction failure.

See past examples:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=hubWIuuz-e4 — first save is a child emerging from a parked car. Notice how Waymo slows down preemptively before the child starts moving.

https://www.reddit.com/r/waymo/s/ivQPuExwNW — detects foot movement from under the bus.

https://www.reddit.com/r/waymo/s/LURJ8isQJ6 — stops for dogs and children running onto the street at night.

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#426

Post by Aloisius »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #387
jobs_throwaway wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a machine that would claim to be as good as the best human driver. Does Waymo claim that? If so I haven't seen it. That should of course be the goal, but "better than the average human driver" should be the bar.

If they don't clim that, why would I be interested in their tech?

Because replacing average drivers with a better than average one would save lives.

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#427

Post by ufmace »

Veserv wrote: post #306

Absent more precise information, this is a statistical negative mark for Waymo putting their child pedestrian injury rate at ~2-4x higher than the US human average. US human drivers average ~3.3 trillion miles per year [1]. US human drivers cause ~7,000 child pedestrian injurys per year [2]. That amounts to a average of 1 child pedestrian injury per ~470 million miles. Waymo has done ~100-200 million fully autonomous…

I don't think I'd want to take much from such a statistical result yet. A sample size of 1 accident just isn't enough information to get a real rate from, not that I want to see more collisions with children. Though this is also muddied by the fact that Waymo will most likely adjust their software to make this less likely, and we won't know exactly how or how many miles each version has. I'd also like to see the data for human incidents over just the temperate suburban areas like Waymo operates in.

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#428

Post by lillecarl »

jjav wrote: post #398
jobs_throwaway wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A human brain automatically thinks of all the scenarios I don't think this is true. There are infinitely many scenarios in a complex situation like a road with traffic, cars parked, pedestrians about, weather, etc. My brain might be able to quickly assess a handful, but certainly not all.

There aren't infinitely many scenarios to consider, but even if that's a figure of speech, there aren't thousands or even hundreds. If there's ten kids nearby, that's basically ten path scenarios, and that might be reduced if you have great visibility into some of them. > My brain might be able to quickly assess a handful, but certainly not all. What would you do if you can't assess all of them? Just keep driving sam…

It should be trivial for Waymo to implement a "drive carefully near schools" feature, and if really spicy "drive REALLY carefully near schools at these times" feature.

Safe driving starts with speed, lowering speed and informing the passengers seems like a no-brainer.

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#429

Post by packetslave »

dfxm12 wrote: post #378
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #2

From the Waymo blog... > the pedestrian suddenly entered the roadway from behind a tall SUV, moving directly into our vehicle's path. Our technology immediately detected the individual as soon as they began to emerge from behind the stopped vehicle. The Waymo Driver braked hard, reducing speed from approximately 17 mph to under 6 mph before contact was made. > Following contact, the pedestrian stood up immediately, w…

Waymo driver? The vehicles are autonomous. I otherwise applaud Waymo's response, and I hope they are as cooperative as they say they will be. However, referring to the autonomous vehicle as having a driver is a dangerous way to phrase it. It's not passive voice, per se , but it has the same effect of obscuring responsibility. Waymo should say we , Waymo LLC, subsidiary of Alphabet, Inc., braked hard... Importantly, W…

> Waymo driver? The vehicles are autonomous

the "Waymo Driver" is how they refer to the self-driving platform (hardware and software). They've been pretty consistent with that branding, so it's not surprising that they used it here.

> Importantly, Waymo takes full ownership for something they write positively [...] But Waymo weasels out of taking responsibility for something they write about negatively

Pretty standard for corporate Public Relations writing, unfortunately.

Re: Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica

#430

Post by [deleted] »

Veserv wrote: post #393
10000truths wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that highway miles heavily skew this statistic. There's naturally far fewer pedestrians on highways (lower numerator), people travel longer distances on highways (higher denominator), and Waymo vehicles didn't drive on highways until recently. If you look only at non-highway miles, you'll get a much more accurate comparison.

Then you or Waymo can meet the burden of proof and present that more precise and better information. There is little reason to assume against safety at this point in time except as a intellectual exercise for how more accurate information could be found. Until then, it is only prudent to defer snap judgements, but increase caution, insist on rigor and transparency, and demand more accurate information.

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