Decades ago I accidentally ran over a cat while driving fairly slow on a residential street. It dashed out between parked cars and I barely saw it at all. I'm guessing sensor-laden driverless cars are actually going to turn out to be better at avoiding those and other kinds of accidents than human drivers.
I had a dog bolt in front of my car once on a slow residential street. He survived. It was terrifying.
Still, this cat was on a busy stretch of 16th Street for nearly a decade and was unharmed by human drivers. I think Waymo failed pretty badly here. Some of the dismissive comments I've seen on this topic seem to me like they're making excuses.
Decades ago a kitty bolted in the middle of the street.
I was less than 18, using one of those little cars that reaches at most 50 Km/h.
I slammed the break and manage to stop maybe 2 cm from the kitty, which managed to continue out of the street alive.
The scooter behind me came close to me and complained that I almost killed them by slamming the breaks.
To this day, I still don't know if that was the right call. That guy could have been a dad and I could have killed a father.
Still I couldn't think of killing a cat either.
If a vehicle can't react to the emmergency break of the vehicle ahead, it's their fault. Change the kitty for a child and the complaint of the scooter is nonsense.
Yes, it's pretty well understood at this point that news reports often greatly overstate the impact of an event compared to base rates. By playing to the "local neighborhood" and "cute kitty" angle while pointing at the "obvious cause" (self-driving car) that has many SF detractors, they can get a higher rate of readers, which increases their impact (and maybe ad revenue?).
At least the number of articles suggesting that trolley problems are highly relevant to self-driving car implementations have gone down.
Humans drivers and self-driving companies that creates such hit-and-run situations should be prosecuted.
So the court can determine what to do next (jail, insurance, etc or just nothing). It does not matter if they hit an object, a pet or a child who didn’t look while crossing the street.
Perhaps assign a safety driver that puts its own driving license and criminal liability on the line, so the company cannot evade responsibility.
Maybe some of the cost savings from autonomous vehicles should be spent on separating roads from pedestrian walkways. I can imagine a world where roads are fully-enclosed in a fence and a segment gets shut down if an animal or human somehow finds their way inside (detected via computer vision).
Given the limited data we have so far, it's undisputable that self-driving technologies that have been deployed commercially are dramatically safer than human driving. It will take a lot more data to know exactly how true this is, but in the meantime, 120 people die per day on average in the US due to traffic accidents.
Legally, who is liable for a self-driving car which makes a mistake? Let's say it's egregious, and clearly the fault of the car, and it say kills someone?
Interesting, I was in a (minor) accident with a waymo and a cat in LA.
The cat survived, but waymo had no idea about the cat. It definitely could see dogs on the sidewalk fine, but cat crossing the street is just too small to notice
Sad but at the end of the day Waymos are significantly less dangerous drivers than humans. If all cars on the street were Waymos, cats (and everyone else) would be much safer.
"On Monday, a beloved shop cat was allegedly struck and killed by a Waymo driving down 16th Street. Now, a small sidewalk memorial has cropped up in his honor, complete with bouquets and lit candles."
Wonder why the title states allegedly but not the article?
Self-driving cars are constantly subject to mini-trolley problems. By training on human data, the robots learn values that are aligned with what humans value. -- Ashok Elluswamy (VP AI/Autopilot at Tesla)
If they were using my data I'd be partly responsible, due to failing to swerve around the last few suicidal prairie dogs I rolled over. I hate when that happens but I don't attempt high speed evasions. But I would if it were something larger, human or not, out of self defense. And it's never happened but I hope I'd stomp and swerve for a toddler. I'm happy with an autopilot learning that rule set, even though I've lost too many cats under tires.
You probably get more honest answers by presenting a trolley problem and then requiring a response within a second. It's a great implicit bias probe.
I love waymo but I think people rushing to defend this are making a mistake. It should come at a high cost to the company, if they make any sort of tragic mistake like this such that they invest a lot to not commit it again.
Otherwise it's a slippery slope of "well but it's generally good"
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[ 1.7 ms ] story [ 54.6 ms ] threadStill, this cat was on a busy stretch of 16th Street for nearly a decade and was unharmed by human drivers. I think Waymo failed pretty badly here. Some of the dismissive comments I've seen on this topic seem to me like they're making excuses.
I was less than 18, using one of those little cars that reaches at most 50 Km/h. I slammed the break and manage to stop maybe 2 cm from the kitty, which managed to continue out of the street alive.
The scooter behind me came close to me and complained that I almost killed them by slamming the breaks. To this day, I still don't know if that was the right call. That guy could have been a dad and I could have killed a father. Still I couldn't think of killing a cat either.
Each story is probably a sad one, but hmm, an Instagram post about one of these being published on Hacker News because it involved a Waymo? Wow!
At least the number of articles suggesting that trolley problems are highly relevant to self-driving car implementations have gone down.
But if this is the worst that can be said about Waymo then that gives me a lot of confidence in their general driving abilities.
So it’s safe to ago ahead and short it.
Remember it trades under GOOG
Perhaps assign a safety driver that puts its own driving license and criminal liability on the line, so the company cannot evade responsibility.
Very bleak and very tech-bro-coded, no wonder that regular people have started seeing us like pariah, we deserve it.
https://waymo.com/blog/2025/05/waymo-making-streets-safer-fo...
Though, Waymo should absolutely be responsible for this and be treated as if it were a human who hit the cat.
Wonder why the title states allegedly but not the article?
You probably get more honest answers by presenting a trolley problem and then requiring a response within a second. It's a great implicit bias probe.
Otherwise it's a slippery slope of "well but it's generally good"