Blaming the kid here is absurd. The kid lives in a system where pedestrians are second class citizens in a world dictated by the auto-petro industrial complex. An industry that has co-opted unelected traffic "engineer" in the US and completely changed the way we live for the last 70 years and have made Americans fatter and less connected.

If the child lived in a neighborhood where cars went slower (it was a 25mph zone) he wouldn't have gotten hit in the first place. Praising Waymo here is like praising a priest for not molesting a child. Yes it's good that the waymo slowed down more than the average car, but really the whole system should be completely rethought. Instead, we're pouring billions into single occupancy vehicles, when we should've been pouring billions into high speed rail, subways, etc.

I'm hopeful that waymos converge on a more efficient design and improve cities in general. As it stands, they are a way for the rich to commute without having to exchange pleasantries with the underclass.

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spankalee 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Good thing no one blamed the kid.

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gambiting 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

>> it was because the child jumped in front of the car.

Did you miss this sentence? How can you read it in any other way?

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_p1l9 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I was probably a bit too harsh on the OP. The OP was probably not blaming the kid. But if Waymo isn't being sued and the city isn't being sued, then society has collectively placed blame on the kid and their parents.

	▲	0x3f 9 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Blame isn't really zero sum is it. Like you can be criticized for leaving your laptop unatended and your doors unlocked, but it doesn't really reduce blame for the thief.
	▲	jedberg 8 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		What you're talking about has nothing to do with Waymo at all though. It's ostensibly off topic here. You're talking about car culture in general. Yes, I blame the parents or the adults that were supposed to supervise the child (but not the child). I teach my kids not to run into the street. I also watch them like a hawk near streets because kids are dumb. I agree with you that we have too strong of a car culture. But we do. So until that changes, we need to teach our kids and adults to be vigilant. But while we do that, I'd still rather have Waymos around than human drivers.
	▲	9 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[deleted]

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tomhow 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47445836 and marked it off topic.

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7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[deleted]