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Brake Point

A recent Waymo accident near an elementary school has reignited the charged conversation over driverless car safety, whether Silicon Valley is moving too fast, and the inevitable wave of lawsuits.

Waymo
Waymo, an Alphabet subsidiary that operates independently and just closed a $16 billion funding round at a $126 billion valuation, is arguably the most advanced of the bunch. But as the company has scaled over the years, the number of incidents has crept up. Photo: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Ian Krietzberg
February 5, 2026

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A few days ago, a driverless Waymo robotaxi hit and minorly injured a child in Santa Monica. The accident, which Waymo described as “contact with a young pedestrian,” allegedly occurred when the child stepped out from behind an S.U.V. and “suddenly” appeared in the road. The robotaxi was going 17 miles per hour when it detected the child, and immediately activated its brakes; it had slowed to about 6 miles per hour when they collided. Waymo put out a statement claiming that its model indicates “a fully attentive human driver in this same situation would have made contact with the pedestrian at approximately 14 mph.”