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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

#231

Post by recursive »

gruez wrote: post #220
recursive wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know the implementation details, but success would be not hitting pedestrians. You have some interesting ideas on how to achieve that but there might be other ways, I don't know.

>I don't know the implementation details, but success would be not hitting pedestrians. So by that logic, if we cured cancer but the treatment came with terrible side effects it wouldn't be considered a "success"? Does everything have to perfect to be a success?

If you clearly define your goals in advance, then you can make success whatever you want. What are Waymo's goals?

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

#232

Post by shaky-carrousel »

jobs_throwaway wrote: post #8
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…

Yup. And to add > Waymo said in its blog post that its “peer-reviewed model” shows a “fully attentive human driver in this same situation would have made contact with the pedestrian at approximately 14 mph.” It's likely that a fully-attentive human driver would have done worse. With a distracted driver (a huge portion of human drivers) it could've been catastrophic.

A fully attentive human would've known he was near a school and wouldn't have been driving at 17 mph to begin with.

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

#233

Post by dylan604 »

direwolf20 wrote: post #82
dylan604 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is hitting a child not a failure? And actually, how can you call this a success? Do you think this was a GTA side mission?

Immediately hitting the brakes when a child suddenly appears in front of you, instead of waiting 500ms like a human, and thereby hitting the child at a speed of 6 instead of 14 is a success. What else to you expect them to do, only run on grade–separated areas where children can't access? Blare sirens so children get scared away from roads? Shouldn't human–driven cars do the same thing then?

This isn't Apollo 13 with a successful failure. A driverless car hit a human that just happened to be a kid. Doesn't matter if a human would have as well, the super safe driverless car hit a kid. Nothing else matters. Driverless car failed.

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

#234

Post by aanet »

This is the classic Suddenly Revealed Pedestrian test case, which afaik, most NCAP (like EuroNCAP, Japan NCAP) have as part of their standard testing protocols.

Having performed this exact test on 3 dozen vehicles (L2/L3/L4) for several AV companies in the Bay Area [1], I would say that Waymo's response, per their blog post [2] has been textbook compliance. (I'm not defending their performance... just their response to the collision). This test / protocol is hard for any driver (including human driven vehicles), let alone ADAS/L3/L4 vehicles, for various reasons, including: pedestrian occlusion, late ped detection, late braking, slick roads, not enough braking, etc. etc.

Having said all that, full collision avoidance would have been best outcome, which, in this case, it wasn't. Wherever the legal fault may lie -- and there will be big debate here -- Waymo will still have to accept some responsibility, given how aggressively they are rolling out their commercial services.

This only puts more onus on their team to demonstrate a far higher standard of driving than human drivers. Sorry, that's just the way societal acceptance is. We expect more from our robots than from our fellow humans.

[1] Yes, I'm an AV safety expert

[2] https://waymo.com/blog/2026/01/a-commitment-to-transparency-...

(edit: verbiage)

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

#235

Post by Sparkle-san »

jjav wrote: post #154
jobs_throwaway wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. And to add > Waymo said in its blog post that its “peer-reviewed model” shows a “fully attentive human driver in this same situation would have made contact with the pedestrian at approximately 14 mph.” It's likely that a fully-attentive human driver would have done worse. With a distracted driver (a huge portion of human drivers) it could've been catastrophic.

> It's likely that a fully-attentive human driver would have done worse. We'd have to see video of the full scene to have a better judgement, but I wouldn't call it likely. The car reacted quickly once it saw the child. Is that enough? But most humans would have been aware of the big picture scenario much earlier. Are there muliple kids milling around on the sidewalk? Near a school? Is there a big truck/SUV parked th…

There's a bus stop right behind my house. I routinely hear the driver honking and yelling at people who ignore when the stop sign is extended (which is a misdemeanor in my state). So forgive me for not assuming a human would have done better.

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

#236

Post by Aloisius »

jjav wrote: post #154
jobs_throwaway wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. And to add > Waymo said in its blog post that its “peer-reviewed model” shows a “fully attentive human driver in this same situation would have made contact with the pedestrian at approximately 14 mph.” It's likely that a fully-attentive human driver would have done worse. With a distracted driver (a huge portion of human drivers) it could've been catastrophic.

> It's likely that a fully-attentive human driver would have done worse. We'd have to see video of the full scene to have a better judgement, but I wouldn't call it likely. The car reacted quickly once it saw the child. Is that enough? But most humans would have been aware of the big picture scenario much earlier. Are there muliple kids milling around on the sidewalk? Near a school? Is there a big truck/SUV parked th…

It was going 17 mph. That is rather slow.

To put it another way. If an autonomous vehicle has a reaction time of 0.3 seconds, the stopping distance from 17 mph is about the same as a fully alert human driver (1 second reaction time) driving 10.33 mph.

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

#237

Post by nkrisc »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #188
aimor wrote: post #150

The school speed limit there is 15 mph, and that wasn't enough to prevent an accident. https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/child-struck-waymo-near-... https://maps.app.goo.gl/7PcB2zskuKyYB56W8?g_st=ac

The interesting thing is a 12 mph speed limit would be honored by an autonomous vehicle but probably ignored by humans.

Ignored by some, not all humans. I absolutely drive extra slowly and cautiously when driving past an elementary school during drop off and pick up precisely because kids do dumb stuff like this. Others do too, though not everyone of course, incredibly.

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

#238

Post by direwolf20 »

dylan604 wrote: post #233
direwolf20 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Immediately hitting the brakes when a child suddenly appears in front of you, instead of waiting 500ms like a human, and thereby hitting the child at a speed of 6 instead of 14 is a success. What else to you expect them to do, only run on grade–separated areas where children can't access? Blare sirens so children get scared away from roads? Shouldn't human–driven cars do the same thing then?

This isn't Apollo 13 with a successful failure. A driverless car hit a human that just happened to be a kid. Doesn't matter if a human would have as well, the super safe driverless car hit a kid. Nothing else matters. Driverless car failed.

If failure is defined such that failure is the only possible outcome, I don't think it's a useful part of an evaluation.

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

#239

Post by Sparkle-san »

fennecbutt wrote: post #174
JKCalhoun wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think my problem is that it reacted after seeing the child step out from behind the SUV. An excellent driver would have already seen that possible scenario and would have already slowed to 10 MPH or less to begin with. (It's how I taught my daughter's to drive "defensively"—look for "red flags" and be prepared for the worst-case scenario. SUV near a school and I cannot see behind it? Red flag—slow the fuck down.)

>reacted after seeing the child step out from behind the SUV. Lmao most drivers I see on the roads aren't even capable of slowing down for a pedestrian crossing when the view of the second half of the crossing is blocked by traffic (ie they cannot see if someone is about to step out, especially a child). Humans are utterly terrible drivers.

They don't even stop when it's a crosswalk with a flashing light system installed and there are no obstructions.

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

#240

Post by recursive »

2b3o4o wrote: post #212
jjav wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's likely that a fully-attentive human driver would have done worse. We'd have to see video of the full scene to have a better judgement, but I wouldn't call it likely. The car reacted quickly once it saw the child. Is that enough? But most humans would have been aware of the big picture scenario much earlier. Are there muliple kids milling around on the sidewalk? Near a school? Is there a big truck/SUV parked th…

According to the article the car was traveling at 17 miles an hour before it began braking. Presumably this was in a 25 mph school zone, so it seems the Waymo was already doing exactly what you describe - slowing down preemptively.

This is close to a particular peeve I have. Occasionally I see signs on the street that say "Slow Down". I'm not talking about the electronic ones connected to radar detectors. Just metal and paint.

Here's my problem. If you follow the instructions on the sign, it still says to slow down. There's no threshold for slow enough. No matter how slow you're going, the sign says "Slow Down". So once you become ensnared in the visual cone of this sign, you'll be forced to sit stationary for all eternity.

But maybe there's a loop-hole. It doesn't say how fast you must decelerate. So if you come into the zone going fast enough, and decelerate slowly enough, you can make it past the sign with some remaining non-zero momentum.

You know, I've never been diagnosed on the spectrum, but I have some of the tendencies. lol.

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