Cases › physical harm › LR-2026-0370
Waymo robotaxi collision with child near elementary school, Santa Monica (January 2026)
Confirmed Why: 2 independent outlets · 2 independent reports
Status: action reported, no fix
No source states: loss or records, agent tool, could do, deployer.
Severity moderate: bounded scope stated (one child, minor injuries per NHTSA records); no broader third-party or system impact is stated
A Waymo robotaxi running its 5th Generation Automated Driving System with no human safety supervisor was involved in a collision in Santa Monica, California, near an elementary school during normal school drop-off hours. The child ran out from behind a double-parked SUV. According to Waymo, the vehicle detected the person as they emerged and braked hard, reducing speed from about 17 mph to under 6 mph before contact. NHTSA records state the child sustained minor injuries. After contact the pedestrian stood up and walked to the sidewalk, Waymo called 911, and the vehicle stopped at the roadside until law enforcement cleared it. NHTSA opened an investigation into whether the vehicle exercised appropriate caution, and the NTSB opened its own investigation in coordination with local police.
What happened
What was done
Risks
Primary43 incidents
Read from the sources; not yet reviewed by a person.
Controls
Not yet read for controls. Controls that mitigate the primary risk:
Harness ApplicationPhysical safety interlocks · Human approval for high-impact actions · Live behaviour monitoring · Adversarial testing before deployment
Similar incidents
Evidence
No source states: what the AI was doing, what went wrong, when it happened, when it was found, how many records were exposed, the direct loss, a count of the other parties affected, any court case, the cause, what set it off.
Show the full account: 6 items from the primary sources
What happened, in order
- January 23 Waymo robotaxi struck a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica.
Not dated in the sources:
- Collision occurred within two blocks of an elementary school during normal school drop-off hours.
- After contact the pedestrian stood up and walked to the sidewalk, and Waymo called 911.
- The vehicle remained stopped at the side of the road until law enforcement cleared it to leave.
- NHTSA opened an investigation into the accident.
- The NTSB said it opened an investigation in coordination with the Santa Monica Police Department.
Show every field, with its source and grade
The AI system
What happened
Impact
Context
Notes on gaps
The child's age and identity are not public. NHTSA and NTSB investigations were still open. The school bus probes and the Los Angeles Zeekr incident are separate incidents and were excluded. No remediation is reported in the sources. Reversibility is not stated.
LR-2026-0370 · version 1 · published 2026-11-01 after automatic checks; not yet checked field by field by a person · JSON