A Waymo driverless taxi recently struck a child near a Santa Monica elementary school during delivery hours, prompting an investigation into the incident by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The child suffered minor injuries, Waymo said. After being hit, the boy got up and walked to the sidewalk, where witnesses called 911.
Santa Monica police said officers responded to the Jan. 23 incident near 24th and Pearl streets, near Grant Elementary School. After being evaluated by fire department first responders, the boy was released.
The investigation said the boy was running across the street to school when he was hit. Waymo said the boy appeared behind a large pickup truck.
“The event occurred when the pedestrian suddenly entered the roadway from behind a tall SUV, moving directly into the path of our vehicle,” Waymo said in a statement. “The Waymo Driver braked hard, reducing speed from approximately 17 mph to less than 6 mph before contact was made.”
There were other children, a crossing guard and several double-parked vehicles nearby when the crash occurred, according to NHTSA.
Waymo reported the incident to NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation and said it would cooperate fully. The Waymo involved was operating the company's fifth-generation automated driving system without a safety driver.
The company said the incident demonstrated Waymo's safety benefits.
“Our peer reviewed model shows that a fully attentive human driver in this same situation would have made contact with the pedestrian at approximately 14 mph,” the statement said. “This significant reduction in speed and severity of impact is a demonstration of the material safety benefit of the Waymo Driver.”
A spokesperson for the city of Santa Monica referred questions to police.
Santa Monica sued Waymo in December after it ordered the company to cease nighttime operations of two self-driving vehicle charging stations. Waymo, in turn, sued the city, alleging that city officials knew the charging facilities would be operational 24 hours a day and maintain a fleet of commercial electric vehicles.
The Alphabet-owned company also came under fire late last year for running over and killing KitKat, a beloved San Francisco neighborhood cat. Weeks later, another Waymo ran over an unleashed dog in the city.
Video evidence shows that KitKat remained under the vehicle for several seconds before it moved away, crushing it. A woman was crouching next to the car, trying to lure KitKat to safety. A human driver would have easily noticed something was wrong, critics said.
Waymo has been the subject of several NHTSA investigations and recalls, including a recall of more than 1,200 vehicles last year due to a software defect that caused a series of minor accidents.
Waymo launched its services in Los Angeles in 2024 and covers more than 120 square miles of the county, not including Los Angeles International Airport. The company began as the Google Self-Driving Car Project, which began in 2009 and put its first self-driving car on the road in 2015. The project was renamed Waymo in 2016 under Google's parent company and launched its driverless transportation service known as Waymo One in 2020.
