Waymo robotaxi hits a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica • Hacker News Board

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

#791

Post by Marsymars » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 5:25 AM UTC

ufmace wrote: post #790

Marsymars wrote: post #750

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd also ask exactly what you want to do with your "fast feedback loop to catch people driving without a license". Unless the vehicle is stolen, seize and impound the vehicle. If the driver is the owner, auction it off and give them back the proceeds, minus costs. I feel like I'm living in some different world where drunk driving is a-okay when I face these types of objections to actually enforcing the rules around…

It's more that you don't seem to engage much with the trade-offs of all of the possible options. This debate has been going on for decades and society has swung back and forth multiple times already. "Let's enforce things much more harshly" is not at all a new take. Enforcing things harshly enough to actually cut down on the rates of DWI will most definitely cause serious damage to a bunch of lives, including many po…

I don’t think the pendulum has ever really swung towards high-effectiveness interventions, only, as you call them, harsh ones.

As far as DUIs are concerned I’m specifically not in favour of harsh jail time and fines due to their lack of effectiveness and collateral damage.

Interventions to allow a short feedback loop to stop the crimes being prevented simply haven’t been tried at scale for DUIs - think efforts like NYC’s anti-idling laws where you can collect a portion of the fine for reporting idling trucks.

Based on, among other things, my experience living for years without a car in both a medium-sized city and a small town, I find it unpersuasive to claim that anyone, including poor and minorities are better served by having community members drive drunk rather than not driving at all. We’ve quantified the costs of drunk driving (hundreds of billions of $) - I’d welcome anyone to quantify the economic benefits we get from allowing those with DUIs to continue to drive.

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

#792

Post by SirMaster » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 5:57 AM UTC

Mawr wrote: post #756

SirMaster wrote: post #652

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I was a human driver in that contextual situation I wouldn't even be going 14mph in the first place...

So you say, with hindsight. Regardless, what you would do is irrelevant. The question is: what would the ~average driver do? If you tell me the average driver goes <=14mph in that situation, I'm gonna look at you funny.

I say because I actually do when I drive through places like active school zones like that.

I don't care what the average driver does, that's a dumb excuse IMO. I care what I do. If I am going to make my car self-driving, it better be at least as good if not better than me if I am going to trust it to transport my family etc.

We should hold self driving to a higher standard than "average driver" because average is bad.

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

#793

Post by Dylan16807 » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 6:03 AM UTC

pastel8739 wrote: post #783

Dylan16807 wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it sound right, because you cut off the word "runaway". It is possible to go too far in either direction.

When the “safety” bit is “avoiding killing people”, I’m not actually totally convinced that it is possible to go too far.

Does the phrase "5mph speed limit everywhere" convince you it's possible to go too far? If not then I don't think you're in alignment with most of the world.

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

#794

Post by jakewins » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 7:29 AM UTC

fennecbutt wrote: post #185

jakewins wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aye, and to always look for feet under and by the front wheel of vehicles like that. Stopped buses similarly, people get off the bus, whip around the front of them and straight into the streets, so many times I’ve spotted someone’s feet under the front before they come around and into the street. Not to take away from Waymo here, agree with thread sentiment that they seem to have acted exemplary

You can spot someone's feet under the width of a bus when they're on the opposite side of the bus and you're sitting in a vehicle at a much higher position on the opposite side that the bus is on? That's physically impossible.

lol no, but if you are in a regular vehicle, you can see under the front of the bus as you pass it, it’s a standard safety practice? The first picture of the bus in this random article shows what I mean, you should be checking under the bus ahead of the front wheel as you pass: https://www.nvp.se/2026-01-08/bil-i-sparviddshinder-stoppade...

Googling this turned up a presentation from Waymo saying they do exactly this: https://www.reddit.com/r/waymo/comments/1kyapix/waymo_detect...

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

#795

Post by jjav » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 9:40 AM UTC

ffsm8 wrote: post #723

jjav wrote: post #711

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But that is missing the overall context that this was an elementary school during drop-off hours. That's when you crawl at 3 mph expecting kids to jump behind any car, and not going at 17mph. Indeed. Sure the car knows the limit, it knows it is a school zone, it can precisely track people within the reach of its sensors (but not behind blockages it can't see through). But it is missing the human understanding of th…

Urm, ime people frequently drive significantly over the speed limit in all these places, at all times of the day. Blows my mind how you guys confidently state this with authority as if that's the normal behavior, when the reality is that it probably should be - but isn't actually.

> Urm, ime people frequently drive significantly over the speed limit in all these places, at all times of the day.

The focus on speed limit as some truth is not the best way to think about it.

It might be 15/20/25 (varies, but those are the most common values I've seen).

But in terms of what is safe, it varies far more.

There will be circumstances where driving double that limit is 100% safe in front of the school. (For example, small numbers of high-school kids standing around but far from the street, so even if they did a mad dash to the street (which that age kids will not do), they still couldn't get in a spot to be hit by the car.)

And there will be circumstances where even a one-tenth of that speed will be far too dangerous to consider. (For example, high density of elementary school kids on a narrow sidewalk with many visual obstructions.)

I have a hard time believing that you, or anyone, would drive the same speed in both scenarios without any consideration to the circumstances of the moment.

I know I most certainly would never. If there is obviously zero chance of an accident I'll drive the limit or above. If there are tons of tiny kids in brownian motion, I'll slow down to a crawl or even stop if I sense risk (like a kid disappearing behind a parked car and now I don't know where they'll pop up).

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

#796

Post by dietr1ch » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 1:12 PM UTC

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.

Is there footage available? A fully attentive human could've read cues from the environment and maybe avoid the accident or at least increased the error margin for that emergency stop.

If that wasn't an option I guess a fast reacting driver would have done a bit worse and an unattentive driver might have even ran ever the kid.

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

#797

Post by dietr1ch » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 1:17 PM UTC

jjav wrote: post #711

rdtsc wrote: post #642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's my thinking as well. Taken in some abstract scenario, all those steps seems very reasonable, and in that abstract scenario we can even say it would do better than an average human would. But that is missing the overall context that this was an elementary school during drop-off hours. That's when you crawl at 3 mph expecting kids to jump behind any car, and not going at 17mph.

> But that is missing the overall context that this was an elementary school during drop-off hours. That's when you crawl at 3 mph expecting kids to jump behind any car, and not going at 17mph. Indeed. Sure the car knows the limit, it knows it is a school zone, it can precisely track people within the reach of its sensors (but not behind blockages it can't see through). But it is missing the human understanding of th…

Trusting the speed limits to be reasonable and all you need to be safe is insane.

Around a school understanding the environment is way much more than understanding just the speed limits and lane boundaries.

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

#798

Post by assaddayinh » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 3:20 PM UTC

almosthere wrote: post #295

jobs_throwaway wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But most humans would have been aware of the big picture scenario much earlier. I wouldn't call it likely. Sure, there are definitely human drivers who are better than Waymo, but IME they're few and far between. Much more common to be distracted or careless.

I don't think it makes sense to lump some drivers better than waymo and worse than waymo. A human brain automatically thinks of all the scenarios, where Waymo has pre-programmed ones (and some NN based ones). So it's scenarios by scenario. Consider this scenario: 5 kids are walking on the sidewalk while you're driving past them. But suddenly a large dumpster is blocking your view of them just as you pass. You saw the…

Didnt the lift car that ran that woman over had this exact problem because without the memento dementia it would have driven to slowly.

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

#799

Post by pxeger1 » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 4:33 PM UTC

somenameforme wrote: post #622

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.

You're omitting the context provided by the article. This wasn't just a random scenario. Not only was this by an elementary school, but during school drop off hours, with both children and doubled parked cars in the vicinity. If somebody doesn't know what double parking is - it's when cars parallel park beside one another, implicitly on the road, making it difficult to see what's beyond them. So you are around young…

> If somebody doesn't know what double parking is - it's when cars parallel park beside one another, implicitly on the road, making it difficult to see what's beyond them

This is not called double parking. Double parking is something different: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_parking

I don't know about you but here in the UK, close parallel parking is normal and expected, and I was taught to avoid trying to cross in the gap between two parked cars, and to be extra careful if I was going to. In this scenario some blame might lie with the driver for going too fast, but I would certainly also blame the child (or their parent) for stepping far into the road without looking.

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

#800

Post by twosdai » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 4:42 PM UTC

Spivak wrote: post #307

maerF0x0 wrote: post #87

Meanwhile the news does not report the other ~7,000 children per year injured as pedestrians in traffic crashes in the US. I think the overall picture is a pretty fantastic outcome -- even a single event is a newsworthy moment _because it's so rare_ . > The NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation is investigating “whether the Waymo AV exercised appropriate caution given, among other things, its proximity to the eleme…

People's standards for when they're willing to cede control over their lives both as the passenger and the pedestrian in the situation to a machine are higher than a human. And for not totally irrational reasons like machine follows programming and does not fear death, or with 100% certainty machine has bugs which will eventually end up killing someone for a really stupid reason—and nobody wants that to be them. Then…

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