Waymo just built a new tool to answer the question every robotaxi skeptic eventually asks: “But is it actually safer than a human driver?”
The Alphabet-owned autonomous vehicle company has created a computer model that simulates how human drivers behave in crash scenarios its robotaxis encounter. The goal is to create an apples-to-apples comparison framework rather than relying on messy, imperfect aggregate crash statistics.
The safety numbers so far
Waymo’s existing safety data already paints a favorable picture for the machines. The company’s autonomous driving system, which it calls the Waymo Driver, has shown a 92% reduction in serious injury crashes compared to human drivers over millions of miles driven. Airbag deployments, another proxy for crash severity, dropped by 83%.
The raw crash-rate numbers tell a similar story. Waymo’s robotaxis average 2.1 police-reported crashes per million miles. Human drivers, by contrast, rack up 4.68 per million miles. The company has also claimed a 13x reduction in serious injury crashes. Waymo has logged over 170 million miles of robotaxi operations across its service areas.
