Waymo has delivered documents to federal safety regulators investigating a January incident in which one of the company's self-driving taxis struck a child in Santa Monica, according to a report published by TechCrunch on Friday. The autonomous vehicle operator completed its submission after receiving multiple extensions from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, though the materials posted to the agency's website were entirely blacked out as confidential business information. The investigation centers on how Waymo's robotaxis operate near schools and determine appropriate speed limits in those zones.
The crash took place on January 23 near a Santa Monica school when a nine-year-old girl stepped into the roadway, TechCrunch reports. The Jaguar I-Pace robotaxi was moving at 17 miles per hour when it detected the child, then applied its brakes and slowed to six miles per hour before contact occurred near the vehicle's front-right headlight, according to a preliminary March report from the National Transportation Safety Board referenced in the article. The student fell to the pavement, then walked to the curb with minor injuries that didn't require ambulance transport. NHTSA opened its investigation one week after the collision and sent Waymo 12 questions on March 23, with an original May 8 deadline for responses.
Waymo requested extra time in a May 1 letter, asking regulators to clarify portions of the inquiry while seeking to avoid what the company called "extraordinary production and review burdens," according to correspondence from Matthew Schwall, Waymo's senior director of safety. The letter stated the shared objective was providing relevant material that helps the investigation without overwhelming either party. NHTSA granted additional time for 10 of the 12 questions, and Waymo delivered answers to some queries in a July 8 letter before completing all submissions this week, TechCrunch notes. The regulator's questions covered how Waymo sets speed limits in school zones, whether the company has fielded complaints about robotaxi conduct near schools, and documentation of the software systems involved.
The posted but redacted responses signal forward motion in the federal review, even as a separate National Transportation Safety Board investigation continues with a more detailed final report typically arriving 12 months after an incident, TechCrunch reports. NHTSA told the outlet it's reviewing other submissions and will publish them once that process wraps up. The dual investigations reflect heightened scrutiny of autonomous vehicle safety protocols in environments with vulnerable pedestrians, particularly children in school zones where speed and reaction time carry outsized consequences. For Waymo, the probe arrives as the company expands commercial robotaxi operations across multiple U.S. cities, making regulatory confidence in its safety systems a business imperative. The outcome could shape industry standards for how self-driving cars navigate areas where children are present and set benchmarks for acceptable braking performance in low-speed collision scenarios. Regulators face the challenge of balancing innovation in autonomous technology against public expectations that these systems perform flawlessly around the most vulnerable road users, a standard that may prove elusive even as the industry matures.