Well, it’s happened. A robotaxi hit a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica, California. It’s not the first case of an autonomous vehicle striking a pedestrian, and it won’t be the last. In this case, a car from Google’s sibling company Waymo was involved in the accident.
Waymo is being transparent about the issue, but the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is also investigating.
At first glance, these seems like an oh-too-typical case of a car hitting a child. From Waymo’s blog post about the incident, which happened on Friday, Jan. 23: “The event occurred when the pedestrian suddenly entered the roadway from behind a tall SUV, moving directly into our vehicle’s path.”
That’s the nightmare scenario for every driver in a school zone, playground zone or any other area where children are walking or playing: a kid suddenly darting into the path of your car from behind a parked or stationary vehicle. We’ll learn more as the NHTSA investigates and releases its findings, but on the face of it, this is an incredibly challenging situation for any driver, human or electronic.
According to Waymo, its car reacted swiftly and correctly: “Our technology immediately detected the individual as soon as they began to emerge from behind the stopped vehicle,” the company said. “The Waymo Driver braked hard, reducing speed from approximately 17 mph to under 6 mph before contact was made.”
According to Waymo, a human driver would have hit the child at 14 mph. Apparently our processing speed and reflexes are not as fast as the computerized version.
The NHTSA essentially corroborates Waymo’s story. From documentation for open investigation PE26001: “NHTSA is aware that the incident occurred within two blocks of a Santa Monica, CA elementary school during normal school drop off hours; that there were other children, a crossing guard, and several double-parked vehicles in the vicinity; and that the child ran across the street from behind a double parked SUV towards the school and was struck by the Waymo AV.”
The good news is that the child immediately got up, according to Waymo, and moved to the side of the road. The car called 911 and stayed there until police allowed it to leave. There’s no word on whether the Waymo had a passenger at the time, which would have been a traumatizing experience.
Having been hit by a car traveling at a much faster speed than this as a child myself, it is amazing what young bodies and soft, still-developing bones can take without serious damage. Still, no one ever wants to see this scenario, and as we know from the death of Elaine Herzberg in 2018, there’s no guarantee when any vehicle, autonomous or not, hits any human.
The good news here is that it appears, so far, that no lasting harm has been done and that this will serve as another data point to help make self-driving cars safer in the future.
We’ll have to wait until we get the results of the NHTSA investigation to hear if there’s more to the story.
The Office of Defects Investigation is looking into the matter. “ODI has opened this Preliminary Evaluation to investigate whether the Waymo AV exercised appropriate caution given, among other things, its proximity to the elementary school during drop off hours, and the presence of young pedestrians and other potential vulnerable road users,” the NHTSA said. “ODI expects that its investigation will examine the ADS’s intended behavior in school zones and neighboring areas, especially during normal school pick up/drop off times, including but not limited to its adherence to posted speed limits. ODI will also investigate Waymo’s post-impact response.”
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