A driverless Waymo taxi hit a dog in San Francisco, reigniting a heated debate over the safety of autonomous vehicles just weeks after one killed a popular neighborhood cat.
On Sunday, around 8 p.m., in the Western Addition neighborhood of San Francisco, a Waymo carrying passengers ran over a small, unleashed dog, the company confirmed.
The condition of the dog is unknown.
The incident occurred near the intersection of Scott and Eddy streets and drew a small crowd, according to social media posts.
A person claiming to be one of the passengers posted about the accident on Reddit.
“Our Waymo just hit a dog,” the passenger wrote. “The children saw everything.”
The passenger described the dog as weighing between 20 and 30 pounds and wrote that his family was traveling home from a Christmas tree lighting event. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has recorded that Waymo taxis were involved in at least 14 collisions with animals since 2021.
The San Francisco Animal Care and Control department said it received a report about the accident Monday morning. Waymo confirmed the collision on Monday and said it had contacted the passenger to check on him.
“Unfortunately, a Waymo vehicle made contact with a small dog that was loose in the roadway,” a company spokesperson said. “We are dedicated to learning from this situation and how we present ourselves to our community as we continue to improve traffic safety in the cities we serve.”
The spokesperson added that Waymo vehicles have a much lower rate of collisions that cause injuries than human drivers. According to Waymo safety data, Waymo vehicles were involved in 91% fewer accidents resulting in serious injuries or worse compared to human drivers over the same distance in the same cities.
Human drivers encounter millions of animals while driving each year.
“I'm also not sure a human driver would have avoided the dog, although I do know a human would have responded differently to a 'bump' followed by a car full of screaming people,” the Waymo passenger wrote on Reddit.
One commenter on the discussion said Waymo vehicles should be held to higher standards than human drivers, because self-driving taxis are supposed to improve road safety.
“The point of this is that Waymo is not supposed to make those mistakes,” the person wrote on Reddit.
Some San Francisco residents are still mourning the death of KitKat, a beloved corner store cat who roamed the Mission District neighborhood. KitKat was hit and killed by a Waymo in October after walking under the self-driving vehicle.
Two witnesses who spoke to news outlet Mission Local said they saw KitKat sitting in front of the stopped vehicle for about seven seconds before walking underneath it as the vehicle drove away.
KitKat's death sparked protests against Waymo and led San Francisco Supervisor Jackie Fielder to urge California lawmakers to allow residents to vote on whether self-driving cars can operate in their neighborhoods.
“A human driver can be held responsible,” Fielder told the San Francisco Chronicle. “There is no one here to hold responsible.”
Waymo is expanding in California and announced last month that it would begin offering rides on freeways in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix. The company also expanded its service area in Northern California to more than 260 square miles.
In Los Angeles, taxis cover an area of 120 square miles and have been operating for more than a year.
Waymo is owned by Google's parent company, Alphabet, and is a key player in the emerging field of self-driving vehicles, which also includes Amazon's Zoox taxi service and Tesla's robotaxi.
Zoox recently began offering free driverless rides in San Francisco amid growing anti-autonomous vehicle sentiment in the city. Still, many residents support the autonomous efforts and believe they will lead to safer streets.
