{"id":"a449b34c-7f82-47c6-b2a8-693ae5b4bb61","slug":"collision-2026-01-23-waymo","kind":"collision","headline":"Waymo driverless robotaxi struck a child near Santa Monica elementary school, prompting NHTSA preliminary evaluation","summary":"A Waymo driverless vehicle operating on its 5th Generation Automated Driving System with no human supervisor struck a child who ran across the street from behind a double-parked SUV near an elementary school in Santa Monica, California during school drop-off hours. The child sustained minor injuries. Waymo voluntarily reported the incident to NHTSA, which opened a preliminary evaluation (PE26001) to assess whether the AV exercised appropriate caution given proximity to the school during drop-off hours.","occurredAt":"2026-01-23T12:00:00.000Z","reviewStatus":"reviewed","modelId":null,"deploymentId":null,"companyId":"2128addc-20c8-4c31-aef5-be5ada97aede","dataCenterId":null,"aliases":[],"collisionRisk":"none","reviewNote":null,"severity":"moderate","rootCauseCategory":null,"rootCauseDetail":null,"affectedUnitsCount":null,"affectedUnitsBasis":null,"remediationStatus":null,"regulatoryAction":"investigation","regulatoryBody":"NHTSA","propertyDamageEstimateUsd":null,"damageEstimateBasis":null,"bodilyInjurySeverity":null,"fatalityCount":null,"lossCostClass":null,"sourceQualityTier":null,"oshaRecordable":null,"oshaCaseNumber":null,"rootCauseDisclosed":null,"publicDisclosureDate":null,"insuranceClaimPublic":null,"formFactor":null,"latitude":{"s":1,"e":1,"d":[34,195000]},"longitude":{"s":-1,"e":2,"d":[118,4912000]},"autonomyClass":null,"legalOutcomeClass":"unknown","createdAt":"2026-07-04T05:43:55.509Z","updatedAt":"2026-07-14T21:53:38.350Z","model":null,"deployment":null,"company":{"id":"2128addc-20c8-4c31-aef5-be5ada97aede","name":"Waymo","slug":"waymo","description":"Waymo is Alphabet's autonomous driving subsidiary. It operates the Waymo One robotaxi service in Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin, and Miami, and runs Waymo Via for autonomous trucking. Spun out of Google's self-driving car project as a standalone Alphabet subsidiary in December 2016.","status":"subsidiary","founded":2009,"hq":"Mountain View, CA","hqLat":37.3893889,"hqLng":-122.0832101,"hqGeocodedAt":"2026-08-05T14:54:38.143Z","hqAddress":null,"hqPrecision":null,"website":"waymo.com","fundingTotal":"27000000000","type":"both","reviewStatus":"reviewed","lifecycleState":"active","supersededByCompanyId":null,"sources":[{"url":"https://waymo.com","label":"Waymo — Company website"},{"url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waymo","label":"Wikipedia — Waymo (history, operations, ownership)"}],"keyFacts":[{"label":"Valuation","value":"$126B post-money (Feb 2026 Series D)"},{"label":"Funding raised","value":"~$27B lifetime ($16B Series D, Feb 2026, largest AV round ever)"},{"label":"Weekly rides","value":"~500,000 paid/week (targeting 1M by end-2026)"},{"label":"Ride volume","value":"15M in 2025; 20M+ lifetime"},{"label":"Autonomous miles","value":"127M+ fully autonomous"},{"label":"Safety claim (Waymo)","value":"90% fewer serious-injury crashes vs. humans (company-stated)"},{"label":"Operating markets","value":"~11 US metros (Waymo One)"},{"label":"Vehicle","value":"Jaguar I-PACE, 6th-gen Waymo Driver"},{"label":"Recent recalls","value":"School-bus passing; ~3,800-vehicle San Antonio flood recall"},{"label":"Active investigations","value":"NHTSA (Santa Monica child injury); NTSB (TX school-bus)"},{"label":"wikidata","value":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q15330"},{"label":"wikipedia","value":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waymo"},{"label":"Hero image candidate","value":"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Waymo_self-driving_car_front_view.gk.jpg (source: Wikimedia Commons, license: CC BY-SA 4.0, Quality image)"},{"label":"Miami depot 1","value":"Operational depot in Wynwood District, Miami (verified, field-inspected 2026)"},{"label":"Miami depot 2","value":"Future depot adjacent to Miami International Airport (under preparation, 2026)"},{"label":"Austin depot","value":"Operations facility on Stassney near Burleson Rd, south of Ben White, Austin TX"},{"label":"Mesa manufacturing hub","value":"Magna retrofits Jaguar I-PACE vehicles for Waymo fleet in Mesa, AZ"},{"label":"IIHS safety rating","value":"Independent IIHS study: Waymo L4 driverless crash rate 68% lower than human drivers (July 2026)"},{"label":"Fleet size (July 2026)","value":"3,800+ vehicles across 10 cities"},{"label":"Valuation (Feb 2026)","value":"$126B — raised $16B to fund expansion"},{"label":"Uber partnership status","value":"Exploring exit — notified Uber of independent entry Jan 2028. Parted ways in Phoenix May 2026."},{"label":"Austin/Atlanta dispute","value":"Waymo questioned cleanliness/routing of Uber-operated vehicles. Uber raised concerns about financial terms and weather-related unavailability."}],"aliases":["Waymo LLC","Waymo One","Google Self-Driving Car Project","Waymo Driver","Alphabet Waymo","Google Waymo","Google self-driving car"],"collisionRisk":"low","reviewNote":null,"atsProvider":"greenhouse","atsSlug":"waymo","factoryLocations":null,"manufacturingCapacity":null,"orgType":null,"burnSignal":null,"litigationEvents":null,"insurancePostureDisclosed":null,"unitEconomicsDisclosed":null,"tickerSymbol":null,"stockExchange":null,"secCik":null,"revenueUsd":null,"revenueBasis":null,"revenueAsOf":null,"employeeCount":null,"employeeCountBasis":null,"employeeCountAsOf":null,"marketCapUsd":null,"marketCapAsOf":null,"marketCapSource":null,"createdAt":"2026-05-25T03:56:10.060Z","updatedAt":"2026-08-05T14:55:18.420Z"},"derived":{"status":"retracted"},"sources":[{"id":"b156f14c-6fe8-4992-b71c-6165e8dbde44","incidentId":"a449b34c-7f82-47c6-b2a8-693ae5b4bb61","url":"https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/29/waymo-nhtsa-crash-child-school.html","label":null,"publishedAt":null,"notes":null,"title":"A Waymo hit a child near an elementary school. The NHTSA is investigating","sourceName":"CNBC","mediaType":"article","videoId":null,"channel":null,"durationSec":null,"timestampSec":null,"createdAt":"2026-07-04T05:43:55.668Z","updatedAt":"2026-07-04T05:43:55.668Z"}],"responses":[],"statusEvents":[{"id":"38cc37cb-8126-469f-93e0-f2910f77a80c","incidentId":"a449b34c-7f82-47c6-b2a8-693ae5b4bb61","status":"retracted","reason":"Duplicate ingestion of the same event as waymo-child-struck-santa-monica-jan-2026, the canonical record for \"Waymo Santa Monica child-struck (Jan 2026)\". This duplicate is retracted to suppress it from aggregates; its own URL stays index,follow per the retraction fairness policy.","source":null,"effectiveAt":"2026-07-24T03:56:15.252Z","createdAt":"2026-07-24T03:56:15.253Z"},{"id":"26968b36-061a-4dfa-8f49-4f2ccd9e5e33","incidentId":"a449b34c-7f82-47c6-b2a8-693ae5b4bb61","status":"active","reason":null,"source":"agent:depth","effectiveAt":"2026-07-04T05:43:55.824Z","createdAt":"2026-07-04T05:43:55.825Z"}],"jsonLd":{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://registry.deploy.report/incidents/collision-2026-01-23-waymo","url":"https://registry.deploy.report/incidents/collision-2026-01-23-waymo","headline":"Waymo driverless robotaxi struck a child near Santa Monica elementary school, prompting NHTSA preliminary evaluation","description":"A Waymo driverless vehicle operating on its 5th Generation Automated Driving System with no human supervisor struck a child who ran across the street from behind a double-parked SUV near an elementary school in Santa Monica, California during school drop-off hours. The child sustained minor injuries. Waymo voluntarily reported the incident to NHTSA, which opened a preliminary evaluation (PE26001) to assess whether the AV exercised appropriate caution given proximity to the school during drop-off hours.","identifier":"a449b34c-7f82-47c6-b2a8-693ae5b4bb61","datePublished":"2026-01-23T12:00:00.000Z","articleSection":"collision","publisher":{"@id":"https://deploy.report/#organization"},"author":{"@id":"https://deploy.report/#organization"}},"framework_metadata":{"framework_schema_version":"0.1.0","verification_status":"verified","maturity_stage":null,"lifecycle_state":null,"architectural_position":{"cohort":null,"sub_cohorts":[]},"within_cohort_verified_vs_claimed_pair":null,"cap_flags":[],"verification_depth":{"sources_count":1,"primary_source_types":["secondary-established-publication"]}}}