Come on. If we're going to go into hypothetical deaths of unrealistically small children, I'm not sure why we're singling out Waymo given all the cats killed by buses, trains, trucks, fire engines, ambulances, motorcycles, tractors, etc. Even cyclists have run over and killed cats.
Sorry Ms. Lovejoy, but I fail to see the harm in singling out Waymo here. It's an automated vehicle that purports to be intelligent, so when it kills a pet in a fashion that's plainly preventable, and elements of that scenario can translate to human children, it seems worthy of discussion.
Never mind the sensors would have little issue detecting a 7 year old as they approached as they are considerably larger than a cat, but it would be extremely hard for a toddler, let alone a 7 year old, to fit themselves under a car so low to the ground.
The point in this thread is that Waymo's control system evidently has zero ability to interact with or appropriately consider humans, only the physical objects it treats as inanimate. Beyond ignoring school bus [STOP] signs, cited here are crowding other drivers parallel parking, ignoring people coming out to check in/around/under a Waymo car, and ignoring small or low living things.
Yes, accidents happen and kill pets and children with all those other vehicle types you cited. That is NOT the point.
When those accidents happen, it is not usually because the human simply ignored the other human, and if it was, it is considered a crime. Child or pet runs out and trips, adult runs out after and starts frantically looking under your car — you just ignore the human and proceed ahead and injure or kill a child or pet under the car, it isn't considered an accident, but an act of willful negligence.
Crowd a person trying to parallel park? Maybe not life-threatening, but are certainly an asshat if you do it, and also stupid since it will take longer for them to park and clear your way.
Not stopping for a school bus dropping off children? That will get children injured and killed, and is flat-out illegal.
In this case, Waymo is ignoring all those types of situations, likely not maliciously, but because those cases are inconvenient to fully deal with in the rush to achieve profitability.
Risking and threatening the lives of people and pets in a public arena where they have no ability to opt-in to the hazard for mere profit, is flat-out irresponsible. Get it sorted on your own testing grounds first. Oh, that's not profitable? Well then, you do not have a working business model.
"Fixing" your business model at the expense of risking the lives of innocent people is about as antisocial as it gets; "Some of you may die but that's a risk I'm willing to take" — is pathological capitalism.
I'd give them a couple of chances to fix it, but if they say they did, and then it happens again, boot them off the streets until they prove they did.