Waymo robotaxi hits child near California school as NHTSA investigates

Waymo shares new details and says it is “fully cooperating” with federal safety regulators after one of its self-driving vehicles “made contact with a young pedestrian” during pick-up hours at a California elementary school.

The January 23rd incident occurred outside a Santa Clara elementary school when a student apparently ran in front of a Waymo self-driving vehicle while attempting to cross the street to reach the school.

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is expected to launch an official investigation into the crash – Waymo says it voluntarily notified the agency the same day.

Robotaxi hits child during school pickup

In an official Waypoint blog post addressing the crash on Thursday, the autonomous driving technology company said that its robotaxi was traveling at a low speed – under 6 mph – when it hit the child, who suffered only minor injuries.

Waymo’s robotaxis are fully autonomous and solely rely on AI ("The Waymo Driver") to navigate.

According to the Alphabet-owned Waymo, the child had “suddenly entered the roadway from behind a tall SUV, moving directly into our vehicle's path.”

The vehicle “braked hard, reducing speed from approximately 17 mph to under 6 mph” before hitting the student,” it said, adding that its vehicle’s technology “immediately detected” the child as soon as they emerged from behind the SUV.

“Following contact, the pedestrian stood up immediately, walked to the sidewalk, and we called 911,” Waymo said, noting that the vehicle then pulled to the side to wait for law enforcement.

The blog notes that, in the same circumstances, a fully attentive human driver would have hit the child at approximately 14 mph, as demonstrated in a peer-reviewed Benchmarking AV Safety study.

Federal regulators open school-zone review

The NHTSA agency said it will examine the vehicle’s “intended behavior in school zones and neighboring areas, especially during normal school pick-up and drop-off times,” including whether the robotaxi complied with posted speed limits.

Federal safety regulators say they will also review Waymo’s post-impact response.

However, the California incident is not the only safety concern federal regulators have over Waymo’s autonomous vehicles operating near schools.

The same day as the crash, the National Transportation Safety Board opened a separate investigation after Waymo robotaxis illegally passed stopped school buses in Austin, Texas, at least 19 times since the start of the school year.

Waymo has said no collisions occurred during the Austin incidents.

That's besides a separate preliminary investigation opened in October by the NHTSA focused on Waymo vehicles operating near school buses.

December recall adds pressure on Waymo

In December, Waymo recalled more than 3,000 vehicles to update software that specifically allowed robotaxis to drive past school buses that were actively loading or unloading students – a violation that increases crash risk.

According to Reuters, the Austin Independent School District requested that Waymo suspend all operations during pick-up and drop-off hours until the vehicles were in compliance – which Waymo apparently refused to do.

The National Transportation Safety Board also said it will investigate the incident.

Formerly known as the Google Self-Driving Car Project, Waymo is headquartered at Alphabet’s campus in Mountain View, California.

The US Senate Commerce Committee has already scheduled a hearing on self-driving cars for February 4th, which will include testimony from Waymo Chief Safety Officer Mauricio Peña, Reuters reported.

Currently, Waymo has over 2,000 “electric Jaguar I-PACE vehicles” operating in Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin, and Atlanta, with its robotaxi service set to launch in Miami, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Orlando over the coming months.

According to Waymo, its vehicles perform over 50,000 fully driverless public rides each week.

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