Every year, cars kill many people on the roads, including cats. But while those responsible were systematically human, this is no longer the case in the era of self-driving cars. And the emotion it arouses is not the same depending on the perpetrator and the victim, as demonstrated by a recent incident in San Francisco.
On the afternoon of October 27, a Waymo robotaxi (a subsidiary of Alphabet, Google’s parent company) killed a cat, named KitKat, in the Mission Dolores district of San Francisco, according to the San Francisco Standard. According to the complaint, the vehicle did not slow down, deviate from its course or attempt to avoid the feline, which was under its wheels. His death unleashed a wave of emotion in the neighborhood where he roamed.
A cat loved by many
Nine-year-old KitKat had been at Mission Dolores for several years. This stray cat was taken in and cared for by a neighbor before taking refuge in a grocery store, Randa’s Market. He had been at that store for six years, helping its owner, Mike Zeidan, with his ongoing rodent problem.
After the feline took up residence in his grocery store, Mike Zeidan quickly took a liking to him and regularly posted photos of him to Randa’s Market’s Instagram account. An image of KitKat also appeared on the store’s Yelp page.
The cat also won the hearts of several neighbors and customers, who shared their memories of him on Instagram and paid tribute to him in front of the supermarket with flowers and candles.
“16th Street (where the grocery store is located, editor’s note) will not be the same. This morning, walking from Mission Street to here with the candles and flowers, everyone knew who it was for. Everyone bowed,” said neighbor Margarita Lara.
A mode of transport far from being safe
This wave of emotions may be surprising, especially since KitKat is not the first animal killed by a self-driving car. In early June 2023, a dog died after being hit by a Waymo robotaxi in the Bernal Heights neighborhood (San Francisco). A week later, a self-driving car from a competing brand, Cruise, collided with a Labrador, which survived.
“We express our deepest condolences to the cat’s owner and to the community that knew and loved him,” the company apologized. “We investigated the incident. While our vehicle was stopped to pick up passengers, a nearby cat got under our car while it was starting,” he added.
This new incident demonstrates once again that autonomous cars are far from perfect, although they are presented as safer than human driving. In 2018, a woman was hit and killed by an Uber robotaxi in Arizona. In October 2023, another person was trapped under one of Cruise’s vehicles in San Francisco. And specifically regarding Waymo, there have been 884 reports of accidents involving its autonomous vehicles this year alone, according to the Department of Motor Vehicles.
The impossible perfect security
What does this precise and attentive count tell us? It shows both the taboo that still surrounds this recent transportation practice and the public’s expectations regarding this technological solution, which means that man completely delegates his responsibility and safety to a machine. In fact, it is this taboo that makes this information cross the American continent and the Atlantic to reach us. What would have happened if this cute cat had been crushed to death by a human driver who was attentive but couldn’t see him slide under his car?
Therefore, a very human paradox occurs here. Everyone wants these autonomous cars to be perfect, impeccable, although the technologies are not and neither are the humans.
As proof, every year around 1.19 million people die as a result of a traffic accident, whether they are pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists or on board a motor vehicle, according to figures from the World Health Organization, to which are added between 20 and 50 million non-fatal injuries… A priori, no autonomous car was involved in these deaths, and that is much better. The ambition is obviously to make transport safer, but one certainty remains: it will never be perfect. If self-driving cars are going to travel the world, we will have to accept it. Unfortunately, sometimes it takes the death of a cat to remind us…
Source: BFM TV
