- Waymo's driverless vehicles had 68% fewer crashes per mile compared to human drivers in four U.S. cities.
- The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) study highlights the need for better federal data monitoring for automated vehicles.
- Waymo operates Level 4 automation, which can drive without human supervision under certain conditions, unlike Level 2 systems that require constant driver attention.
- Current crash reporting systems, including NHTSA's Standing General Order and California's database, make it difficult to directly compare crash rates due to different reporting thresholds and incomplete mileage data.
- Researchers had to clean and filter crash data to only include incidents a reasonable person would report to police, resulting in a far lower number of police-reportable crashes.
- Waymo's crash involvement rate was lower in Phoenix (76%), San Francisco (35%), Los Angeles (71%), but 4% higher in Austin (small sample size).
- Waymo vehicles were involved in 85% fewer single-vehicle crashes and 81% fewer injury crashes per mile than human drivers.