Waymo autonomous vehicles were engaged in 68% fewer accidents than human drivers in a three-year span across four U.S. cities, based on recent data from the U.S. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. A study released on Thursday revealed that there were 89 police-reportable accidents involving Waymo in San Francisco, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Austin between 2021 and 2024. In comparison, there were 901,525 police-reported crashes caused by humans in the same locations during that period, excluding incidents on interstates and highways.
According to Steven Waslander, the director of the University of Toronto Robotics Institute, this technology being put into practice in a significant manner has been a long-awaited dream for researchers. Of the 89 Waymo-involved accidents, 72% occurred while the Waymo vehicle was fully autonomous, with around half of them having passengers onboard at the time. These figures correspond to approximately 80 million kilometers of autonomous Waymo operation compared to 355 billion kilometers driven by humans in the same regions over the three-year timeframe.
The study quantified the data by comparing crash rates per million vehicle miles traveled, revealing that human drivers had a crash rate of 4.06 per million miles, while Waymo vehicles had a rate of 1.28 per million miles, making Waymo’s rate 68% lower. The independent study of Alphabet’s autonomous vehicles utilized data from police reports, Waymo, and federal databases.
Waymo operates in 11 U.S. states and has intentions to expand to the United Kingdom and Japan, with lobbying efforts underway to establish programs in Canada. However, the company voluntarily reports its data, and there are calls for greater accessibility and clarity of datasets by U.S. governments. While the future of driverless vehicles, especially Waymo’s, appears promising based on the study results, challenges remain in breaking into the Canadian market due to regulatory hurdles and climate disparities.
Eric Teoh, the director of statistical services at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, emphasized the importance of considering the types of crashes when analyzing the data. He highlighted that Waymo vehicles are involved in fewer severe crashes compared to human-driven vehicles, offering a positive outlook for the driverless industry. Despite the lower accident rates of autonomous vehicles, instances of technical challenges have surfaced on social media, raising doubts about their reliability and advancement.
Andrew Miller, author of “The End of Driving,” acknowledged a level of skepticism surrounding autonomous vehicles’ capabilities and suggested that they are still in the learning phase. While there is potential for driverless ride-hail vehicles to become more prevalent by 2030, it is unlikely that they will dominate the transportation landscape entirely.
Overall, the study underscores the safety benefits of autonomous technology and its potential to revolutionize the transportation industry.
