The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened an investigation after a Waymo robotaxi hit a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica, causing minor injuries and fueling renewed skepticism over whether autonomous vehicles are ready for prime-time.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) says the child ran into the street from behind a stopped or double-parked SUV and was struck by the Waymo vehicle during normal school drop-off hours. The agency says there were other children, a crossing guard, and several other double-parked vehicles in the vicinity.
The incident underscores concerns about how Waymo prioritizes the safety of young children in its AI models, and occurred just days after the Austin Independent School District in Texas reported the robotaxis were failing to stop for school buses, and called for Waymo to cease operations entirely during mornings and afternoons on school days – and if that sounds familiar, that’s because you’re paying attention. Waymo was already facing scrutiny from NHTSA after one of its self-driving cars were caught on video illegally passing a stopped school bus that was letting children off in Atlanta, Georgia.
In dealing with its own issues with Waymo, the Austin Independent School District (ISD) representatives did not mince words:
Put simply, Waymo’s software updates are clearly not working as intended nor as quickly as required. We cannot allow Waymo to continue endangering our students while it attempts to implement a fix.
AUSTIN ISD
The optics are bad
Given the strong emotions that robotaxis seem to elicit (and, of course, the fact that this incident seems to have been a long time coming), you’d think Waymo would have had a polished and prepared response. Instead, “Waymo shows no empathy,” according to Electrive.
“Our technology immediately detected the individual as soon as they began to emerge from behind the stopped vehicle,” reads Waymo’s official response. “The Waymo Driver [software] braked hard, reducing speed from approximately 17 mph to under 6 mph before contact was made.”
Waymo further stated that the company immediately notified local police of the incident, and left the vehicle at the scene until it received official clearance to continue on its way.
“The vehicle remained stopped, moved to the side of the road, and stayed there until law enforcement cleared the vehicle to leave the scene,” Waymo said, in its statement.
So, yeah – the optics are bad, and Waymo seems to be blaming the kid for getting hit, which won’t win it many fans. From a business perspective, too, Waymo couldn’t have picked a worse time to hit a kid (regardless of who , as the company’s self driving cars are being deployed in rising numbers across US cities, including San Francisco and Miami, as the company races to show the sort of growth it needs to justify continued investment.
For context, GM has shuttered its own self-driving taxi business, Cruise, after investing more than $12 billion (with a “b”) in its development, and Tesla seems to be unable to make its loss-leading, camera-only “Robotaxi” robotaxi solution work without human safety monitors either in the vehicle or in closely-following chase cars.
The US Senate’s Commerce Committee has scheduled a hearing on self-driving car safety for 04FEB2026, which will include Waymo’s Chief Safety Officer, Mauricio Peña.
SOURCES: Electrive, Fox 11 Los Angeles, Reuters.
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