Waymo Robotaxis Are Much Safer — Part Deux

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Whoops — I wrote a few examine from 2024 displaying that Waymo robotaxis were proving to be safer than human-driven carshowever I didn’t catch at the moment that Waymo had simply revealed a weblog on a newer study once more displaying Waymo robotaxis are safer than human drivers. Specifically, this one highlights how a lot safer Waymo robotaxis are for bicyclists and predestrians.

“The path to Vision Zero requires reducing severe crashes and improving the safety of those most at risk. Our latest research paper shows that the Waymo Driver is making significant strides in both areas. By reducing the most dangerous crashes and providing better protection for pedestrians, cyclists, and other vulnerable road users, Waymo is making streets safer in cities where it operates,” Waymo writes. However throughout the board, Waymo robotaxis are chopping down the variety of crashes and the variety of critical crashes.

“The paper, accepted to be published in the Traffic Injury Prevention Journalexpands on our Safety Impact Hub research, providing a deeper analysis of Waymo’s performance across 11 different crash types compared to human drivers. It also offers new insights into Waymo’s positive impact on serious injury crash rates.”

There are a selection of fascinating findings from the analysis, which is predicated on hundreds of thousands of miles of driving. Right here’s extra from Waymo:

“The analysis finds that, in comparison with human benchmarks over 56.7 million miles and no matter who was at fault, the Waymo Driver had:

• • Safer interactions with weak street customers (VRUs) with substantial reductions in crashes involving accidents amongst pedestrians (92% discount), cyclists (82% discount), and motorcyclists (82% discount).
  • 96% fewer injury-involving intersection crasheswhich, based on NHTSA, are a number one reason behind extreme street hurt for human drivers. This discount could be largely attributed to the Waymo Driver’s capacity to detect and appropriately reply to automobiles operating a pink gentle.
  • 85% fewer crashes with suspected critical or worse accidents. Constructing on our earlier analysis, which demonstrated Waymo’s important reductions throughout all accidents mixed, the brand new examine gives early proof for related advantages in critical accidents alone. The outcomes are statistically important however as a result of critical damage circumstances are, luckily, uncommon, they’re based mostly on a small variety of occasions. We are going to proceed to observe outcomes and achieve larger confidence as we accumulate extra miles.”

How will you not love that? These are the stats you wish to see. The intersection crashes are notably fascinating and thrilling. What number of crashes do you see that occurred due to somebody operating a pink gentle? The Waymo Driver’s capacity to see a automobile prone to run a pink gentle and keep away from it’s tremendous promising — or I ought to say comforting, because it’s already chopping down on crashes, critical crashes, and fatalities. It could be great to see Waymo’s numbers develop exponentially and people stats drop accordingly.

“It’s encouraging to see real-world data showing Waymo outperforming human drivers when it comes to safety. Fewer crashes and fewer injuries — especially for people walking and biking — is exactly the kind of progress we want to see from autonomous vehicles,” Jonathan Adkins, Chief Govt Officer at Governors Freeway Security Affiliation, commented.

Once more, you can find the full study here. You can too discover extra in Waymo’s safety data hub.