A self-driving Waymo taxi ran over a dog in San Francisco, exacerbating the debate about the safety of self-driving or autonomous vehicles.
Last Sunday, about 8:00 p.m. a Waymo carrying passengers ran over a small unleashed dog.
The incident occurred near the intersection of Scott and Eddy Streets. The family had been returning from a Christmas celebration.
According to Mission Local, one of the passengers posted the following heartbreaking news on the social media Reddit:
Our Waymo just ran over a dog. Trying to call customer support. Called the police. Crowd is gathering not sure what to do. (sic)
Next thing I heard was yelping. I didn’t see the dog before the impact, but the kids were screaming about it.”
The 25 pound dog was later euthanized due to his severe injuries.
A Waymo spokesperson verified that the accident had occurred:
Unfortunately, a Waymo vehicle made contact with a small, unleashed dog in the roadway. We are dedicated to learning from this situation and how we show up for our community as we continue improving road safety in the cities we serve.
The incident comes weeks after a Waymo vehicle killed a Mission District bodega cat named KitKat. The popular corner-store cat was known by area residents and roamed the Mission District neighborhood. KitKat had been run over and killed by a Waymo in October after walking under the driverless vehicle. KitKat had been spotted sitting in front of the stopped vehicle for about seven seconds before walking under the vehicle as it pulled away.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has recorded Waymo taxis as being involved in at least 14 animal collisions since 2021.
I’m not sure a human driver would have avoided the dog either, though I do know that a human would have responded differently to a ‘bump’ followed by a car full of screaming people.
After the incident, the Mission District’s supervisor, Jackie Fielder, called for state legislators to let voters decide on a county-by-county basis whether they want autonomous vehicles on their streets.
Waymo is owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet which also includes Amazon’s taxi service Zoox and Tesla’s robotaxi.
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