Waymo Hits a Dog In San Francisco, Reigniting Safety Debate (latimes.com)
- Reference: 0180269749
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/12/02/2322203/waymo-hits-a-dog-in-san-francisco-reigniting-safety-debate
- Source link: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2025-12-02/waymo-strikes-dog-in-san-francisco-weeks-after-kitkat
> The incident occurred near the intersection of Scott and Eddy streets and drew a small crowd, according to social media posts. A person claiming to be one of the passengers posted about the accident on Reddit. "Our Waymo just ran over a dog," the passenger [3]wrote . "Kids saw the whole thing." The passenger described the dog as between 20 and 30 pounds and wrote that their family was traveling back home after a holiday tree lighting event. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has recorded Waymo taxis as being involved in at least 14 animal collisions since 2021.
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> "Unfortunately, a Waymo vehicle made contact with a small, unleashed dog in the roadway," a company spokesperson said. "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 spokesperson added that Waymo vehicles have a much lower rate of injury-causing collisions than human drivers. Human drivers run into millions of animals while driving each year.
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> "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," the Waymo passenger wrote on Reddit. One person who commented on [4]the discussion said that Waymo vehicles should be held to a higher standard than human drivers, because the autonomous taxis are supposed to improve road safety. "The whole point of this is because Waymo isn't supposed to make those mistakes," the person wrote on Reddit.
[1] https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2025-12-02/waymo-strikes-dog-in-san-francisco-weeks-after-kitkat
[2] https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/16/beloved-sf-cats-death-fuels-waymo-criticism/
[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/waymo/comments/1pb3efx/our_waymo_just_ran_over_a_dog/?rdt=58810
[4] https://www.reddit.com/r/waymo/comments/1pbvqru/waymo_confirms_its_car_hit_dog_in_western_addition/
Unleashed animal runs into street? (Score:1)
And?
Re: Unleashed animal runs into street? (Score:1)
Same as when a drunk falls onto subway tracks: it's capitalist society's fault.
Re: (Score:3)
I dunno, but you got down-modded for saying the obvious truth.
Re: (Score:1)
What about all the unleashed humans in the street?
Re: Unleashed animal runs into street? (Score:1)
The ones who mindlessly walk into traffic in while staring at their phones, not even bothering to see if they're even at a crosswalk?
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Where I live pedestrians have the right of way so when they step into the street you must stop for them whether a crosswalk is painted there or not. Yes I hate the phone zombies as well - I always wonder what they seek as they look so intently into their behavior control erm, I mean, communication devices.
wait, what? (Score:1)
> "The whole point of this is because Waymo isn't supposed to make those mistakes," the person wrote on Reddit.
I don't think any system can ever be expected to never make a mistake. As long as they make way less mistakes than humans, I'm all for it. The expectation of perfection is unrealistic.
Re: (Score:1)
Right, but what about the mistake that is affecting you? If a person makes a mistake they will be held responsible. So, same should go for companies as well.
Good for them if they make less mistakes, they are going to save money and pay less.
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Who says the company isn't held responsible?
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Last I checked the local government said so. They have indemnified waymo in every market they have launched their taxi service. I don't think that would hold up if they killed a human being, at least not one that isn't homeless, but so far it's held up for the more minor stuff that's happened.
Basically waymo cannot be cited for traffic violations and killing a pet is just a traffic violation. The most they could be held responsible for would be the value of the pet which is usually under $100.
Re:wait, what? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is on the dog owner since they were breaking the city's strict six-foot leash law. Seems to me they owe Waymo for damage to the car due to their obvious negligence.
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I guess, this should really help to reduce jaywalking in the cities where Waymo operates.
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As the jaywalking example implies, even a human driver is at fault if the jaywalker is actually hit by the car. So, while the jaywalker can be fined for being on the road, it's still a far worse offence if a car hits that jaywalker.
Re: (Score:2)
If it could be demonstrated the dog was attempting suicide then leniency might be considered towards the driver's failure to avoid the accident.
Re: wait, what? (Score:2)
Yup, still better than humans.
"Driver hits unleashed dog that darted into street" is just a Tuesday, but " autonomous vehicle hits unleashed dog that darted into street" is a headline because it is so rare.
Re:wait, what? (Score:4, Informative)
When it's a mechanised public service it's never okay to make mistakes. Same as for air accidents.
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Hey Sully! Why didn't you dodge those geese?
Shuld the sue Waymo? (Score:1)
I am surprised that nobody has suggested this. Should they sue and let the judge to decide if there was a problem?
This is, probably, the only way to make sure robots do the right things in the streets. This is capitalism.
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Because the suit would fail. Waymo publishes its safety numbers, and it's basically the opposite of "evil machines killing people on the roads".
It's more of a "if this was a medical study, we would immediately halt the study and focus on rolling robotic cars for everyone for ethical reasons". Because they're somewhere between seven and ten times less dangerous than human driven cars in terms of accidents, deaths, etc.
So if we focused on ethics of it, human driven cars would be considered so horrifically mur
"Lawbreaking Dog Owner Damages Waymo" FTFY (Score:2)
San Francisco has a strict six-foot leash law for dogs, right? How is this Waymo's fault? Are they supposed to defy physics when someone's mutt jumps into traffic?
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It isn't, but it makes for great headlines and feeds the propaganda class.
Hence propaganda class doing the work of earning their cocaine and hooker money.
Expectations (Score:2)
People expecting automated driver-less vehicles to do better than humans is hilarious. Last year one of my dogs got out and entered the street in front of my house. I was able to wave my arms at the driver approaching motioning him to stop, which he did. Got my dog, fixed the fence, life goes on. Imagine waving your hands at a robot motioning it to stop. Will it? Probably not. Dead dog. Automated vehicles are an utterly stupid idea.
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I was at the side of the road you asshole. How about we eliminate posting as AC on Slashdot to expose assholes like this.
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By the numbers, they do between seven and ten times better than human driven cars.
Waymo publishes their safety numbers. Google it. It's insane how much safer those cars are compared to human driven ones.
improvement != perfection (Score:2)
"The whole point of this is because Waymo isn't supposed to make those mistakes,"
There is no whole point in such a complex issue, but I would like to tell this person that the idea is part of the argument for automated vehicles is they may make less mistakes . Perfection shouldn't be a condition for improvement.
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Our society has a severe utopian fetish at its core. We made it so that poor are fat rather than dying of hunger: not good enough, tear down capitalism. We made it so that pretty much everyone has a communication device in his/her pocket that can do things we thought of as science fiction just a couple of decades ago. Not good enough because there are some downsides like how youth interacts with them. We made it so that people are mostly cosmopolitan and race-agnostic. Not good enough, must uplift the worst
One dog and one cat... (Score:3)
...In all those millions of driving miles? That's a far better record than human drivers in any single small town.
It's not Waymo's fault (Score:3)
> "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," the Waymo passenger wrote on Reddit.
I can tell you exsctly how many human drivers would respond in a situation like this, because I've seen it happen and have heard about it enough times: the driver would have accelerated away from the incident at high speed.
Lots of people are jerks. And others don't want to take the risk of confronting an angry (possibly armed) person who blames the driver for running over their pet.
The dog was unleashed. The legal fault lies with the owner. This was an unfortunate accident, but it is hardly Wayno's fault.
The dog should've been wearing its (Score:1)
"robots must avoid met" dog collar as mandated by law.