Description: A Waymo driverless vehicle reportedly struck a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica, California during school drop-off hours. According to filings with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the child allegedly sustained minor injuries. The vehicle was purportedly operating on Waymo's 5th Generation Automated Driving System without a human safety driver. Waymo reported the incident to federal regulators, who subsequently opened an investigation.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: Waymo , Waymo 5th Generation Automated Driving System , Autonomous vehicle perception system , Autonomous vehicle decision-making system , Pedestrian detection system and Automated braking system developed and deployed an AI system, which harmed minors , Unnamed elementary school student , pedestrians and General public.
Alleged implicated AI systems: Waymo 5th Generation Automated Driving System , Autonomous vehicle perception system , Autonomous vehicle decision-making system , Pedestrian detection system and Automated braking system
Incident Stats
Incident ID
1361
Report Count
1
Incident Date
2026-01-23
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
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Alphabet-owned Waymo has informed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that one of its driverless vehicles "struck a child near an elementary school" in Santa Monica, California
The Jan. 23 incident is now being investigated b…
Variants
A "variant" is an AI incident similar to a known case—it has the same causes, harms, and AI system. Instead of listing it separately, we group it under the first reported incident. Unlike other incidents, variants do not need to have been reported outside the AIID. Learn more from the research paper.
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