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Cruise Rival Waymo Touts Driverless Cars As Safer Than Human-Driven Cars

Autonomous vehicle (AV) technology advocates tout a variety of potential benefits when it comes to widespread AV implementation. However, the most important benefit is an increase in safety compared to the average human-driven vehicle. Nevertheless, with high-profile incidents like the Cruise accident last year that resulted in a pedestrian injury, convincing the public that AVs are indeed safer might be something of a challenge. Now, a new website published by Alphabet’s Waymo AV division highlights some of the statistics around driverless vehicle safety.

A Waymo AV testing on public roads.

Waymo currently operates a fleet of autonomous, all-electric vehicles across the U.S. as a means of developing new AV technology. The company also operates its driverless ride-hailing service, Waymo One. According to the company’s website, Waymo One vehicles have covered well over 22 million miles in the four cities in which the service is available, including 15.4 million miles in Phoenix, 5.93 miles in San Francisco, 855,000 miles in Los Angeles, and 14,000 miles in Austin.

Compared to human-driven vehicles, Waymo states that its autonomous vehicles had 84 percent fewer airbag deployment crashes, 73 percent fewer injury-causing crashes, and 48 percent fewer police-reported crashes. The website also includes graphs indicating a significant crash reduction estimate per million miles compared to human drivers if the AVs had traveled the same distance as human drivers in the cities in which the company operates.

“By making detailed information about crashes and miles driven publicly accessible, Waymo’s transparency will not only support independent research, but foster public trust,” says Chief Research Officer, Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, David Zuby, per the new website. “We hope other companies developing and deploying automated driving systems follow suit.”

Even so, in the methodology section, Waymo highlights that “drawing meaningful comparisons between [human-driven and autonomous vehicles] is challenging,” stating that AV and human data differ in the definitions of a crash, with the former required to report any physical contact that results or allegedly results in any property damage, injury, or fatality, and human crash data requiring at least enough damage for a police report. The company also states that not all human crashes are reported, and that, as a ride-hailing service, Waymo operates primarily in dense city scenarios.

Back in October, a Cruise autonomous vehicle was involved in an incident in which a pedestrian was struck by a human-driven vehicle and thrown under a driverless Cruise AV. The incident resulted in a massive restructuring effort at Cruise as the company attempted to regain public trust in AV technology.

Jonathan is an automotive journalist based out of Southern California. He loves anything and everything on four wheels.

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Comments

  1. LOL

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  2. BS

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  3. I took a ride in a Waymo last year. It was a pretty good experience overall, but the vehicle was a very aggressive driver when pulling into traffic. Although it stayed within its lane, the human drivers were hitting the brakes and trying to give it as much space as they could. Definitely a lot of promise in the tech.

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