Waymo driverless cars reportedly outperformed humans

Autonomous and driverless cars are the newest trends in the automotive industry. Tech companies are currently at the forefront of developing driverless cars, followed by car manufacturers and other startups. Among others, Waymo is known to be a leading company in this space that started in 2009 as Google Self-Driving Car Project.

The Alphabet-owned company has published a report on its driverless cars, stating that the tech could “significantly” outperform humans. According to the company’s statement, Waymo completed over 700,000 ride-hailing trips with public riders in 2023 and achieved over 7 million rider-only miles in Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The research further notes that Waymo Driver performance “led to a significant reduction in the rates of police-reported and injury-causing crashes compared to human drivers” in the cities where the company operated.

Waymo claims its driverless car tech is safer than human driving

One of the metrics that Waymo compares its tech with human driving is the number of vehicle crashes per mile of driving. Waymo’s data comes from “over 7.14 million fully autonomous miles driven 24/7 through the end of October 2023” and the crash reports under the NHTSA’s Standing General Order (SGO).

The data suggests that Waymo Driver led to an 85% reduction or 6.8 times lower crash rate involving any injury, from minor to severe and fatal cases. Additionally, the tech resulted in a 57% reduction or 2.3 times lower police-reported crash rate.

To clarify these numbers better, the Waymo driverless cars tech led to an estimated 17 fewer injuries and 20 fewer police-reported crashes in over 7.1 million miles of driving across Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

This is a significant achievement for Waymo, considering that over 1.3 million people die annually in car accidents worldwide (via Forbes), and in 2021 alone, over 6,102,936 police-reported vehicle accidents occurred in the United States.

Waymo has also published detailed research that compares the company’s rider-only crash data to human benchmarks at 7.1 million miles. The Alphabet-backed company wants to set an international standard for valid analysis of autonomous vehicle (AV) crash data.