No, they actually have fewer total accidents per mile than actual taxi drivers. Did you read the link you posted? They are involved in 1.5 times more accidents with severe or fatal injuries per mile, but that is comparing Waymos driving in more open cities at higher speeds to taxis in the very slow speed, high traffic city of NYC where the primary use case is different. Also, the only fatal accidents (2 of them) have been the fault of other cars, not Waymos, so it’s kinda unfair to include those.
“The researchers compared Waymo’s nationwide crash data with New York City’s for-hire fleet and found the robotaxis had a serious injury or fatal crash rate about 1.5 times higher per mile driven.”
You are quoting the serious or fatal injury stats. The overall injury accident rate, though, as quoted from the article: “When all injury-causing crashes were considered, Waymo performed better. Its robotaxis were involved in 67% fewer injury crashes per million miles than New York City’s for-hire vehicles.”
Looking at the raw data from NYC, in 2025 there were 15 crashes with fatalities and only 3 with serious injuries. To follow your train of thought, I would think the survivability of a serious crash is important to optimize for, and Waymo has a better ratio for that (4 to 2 versus 3 to 15).
They would need to have more of them first for the data to actually be accurate at all. From what I could find, there have been no Waymo caused fatalities - two deaths caused by other drivers though - and four serious injuries, for roughly 220 million miles driven.
While you can then state that the rate of fatalities is 1 per 110 million miles, it’s not really useful in any way.
I’m not shilling for AI cars, I’m correcting idiots who either don’t know how to read or who intentionally give incorrect information.
You, for instance, just said “imagine downplaying a 50% increase in death rate.” That is false. It’s a 50% increase in crashes involving death OR a serious injury. Is your reading comprehension bad and you didn’t notice that it was for both types of crashes, or are you intentionally giving bad information to try to make a point? Additionally, there have only been 2 crashes involving Waymos where people have died. BOTH of those crashes were the fault of the human driver in the other car. One of them was the Waymo sitting stopped at red light and it got rammed from behind by a drunk driver in an SUV, which pushed the Waymo into the intersection where another car hit it. There have also only been 4 Waymo crashes with serious injuries in something like 220 million miles. I can’t find whether those 4 crashes were the Waymo’s fault. You seem caught up on this 50% increase number, so if we compare it to taxi drivers, that means they had 4 crashes per 220 million miles that had either a death or serious injury, compared to Waymo’s 6. But the problem is the statistics aren’t comparable. There were 15 fatalities from taxis in NYC in 2025 alone, versus 2 fatalities in Waymos total. There are just far far far more millions of miles driven to pull data from. It’s also comparing apples to oranges with where each group is driving. You are probably going to argue that, but looking at the NYC data, 11 of the 15 fatalities were involving Black Cars that normally take people to the airport and will be driving faster versus medallion cabs that are inside the city at much lower speeds. Waymo operates in faster driving cities with less traffic than medallion cabs, so they’ll be expected to have more serious injury crashes. Also interesting: in 2025 there were 15 fatalities with taxis in NYC, but there were only 3 crashes with serious injuries. You are more likely to die in a crash in a taxi than get a serious injury, but in a Waymo you are more likely to survive a serious crash.
As far as me ignoring minor incidents that would not have been reported to police, why would I bring that up? There is no information to compare. Waymo might have that data, but the taxi drivers in NYC and human drivers all around the world do not report and so we will not have the data to compare to. Why are you ignoring minor incident data from taxi drivers? Are you shilling for Yellow Cab?
No, they actually have fewer total accidents per mile than actual taxi drivers. Did you read the link you posted? They are involved in 1.5 times more accidents with severe or fatal injuries per mile, but that is comparing Waymos driving in more open cities at higher speeds to taxis in the very slow speed, high traffic city of NYC where the primary use case is different. Also, the only fatal accidents (2 of them) have been the fault of other cars, not Waymos, so it’s kinda unfair to include those.
“The researchers compared Waymo’s nationwide crash data with New York City’s for-hire fleet and found the robotaxis had a serious injury or fatal crash rate about 1.5 times higher per mile driven.”
Yes, thank you for quoting exactly what I said??
You are quoting the serious or fatal injury stats. The overall injury accident rate, though, as quoted from the article: “When all injury-causing crashes were considered, Waymo performed better. Its robotaxis were involved in 67% fewer injury crashes per million miles than New York City’s for-hire vehicles.”
Fatalities and serious injuries sound like a far more important statistic to optimize for in terms of public safety.
Looking at the raw data from NYC, in 2025 there were 15 crashes with fatalities and only 3 with serious injuries. To follow your train of thought, I would think the survivability of a serious crash is important to optimize for, and Waymo has a better ratio for that (4 to 2 versus 3 to 15).
Agreed. I’m just correcting misinformation and giving context.
They would need to have more of them first for the data to actually be accurate at all. From what I could find, there have been no Waymo caused fatalities - two deaths caused by other drivers though - and four serious injuries, for roughly 220 million miles driven.
While you can then state that the rate of fatalities is 1 per 110 million miles, it’s not really useful in any way.
Wow you’re trying really hard to shill for these AI cars. Imagine downplaying a 50% increase in death rate
Funny how you ignored this part too:
I’m not shilling for AI cars, I’m correcting idiots who either don’t know how to read or who intentionally give incorrect information.
You, for instance, just said “imagine downplaying a 50% increase in death rate.” That is false. It’s a 50% increase in crashes involving death OR a serious injury. Is your reading comprehension bad and you didn’t notice that it was for both types of crashes, or are you intentionally giving bad information to try to make a point? Additionally, there have only been 2 crashes involving Waymos where people have died. BOTH of those crashes were the fault of the human driver in the other car. One of them was the Waymo sitting stopped at red light and it got rammed from behind by a drunk driver in an SUV, which pushed the Waymo into the intersection where another car hit it. There have also only been 4 Waymo crashes with serious injuries in something like 220 million miles. I can’t find whether those 4 crashes were the Waymo’s fault. You seem caught up on this 50% increase number, so if we compare it to taxi drivers, that means they had 4 crashes per 220 million miles that had either a death or serious injury, compared to Waymo’s 6. But the problem is the statistics aren’t comparable. There were 15 fatalities from taxis in NYC in 2025 alone, versus 2 fatalities in Waymos total. There are just far far far more millions of miles driven to pull data from. It’s also comparing apples to oranges with where each group is driving. You are probably going to argue that, but looking at the NYC data, 11 of the 15 fatalities were involving Black Cars that normally take people to the airport and will be driving faster versus medallion cabs that are inside the city at much lower speeds. Waymo operates in faster driving cities with less traffic than medallion cabs, so they’ll be expected to have more serious injury crashes. Also interesting: in 2025 there were 15 fatalities with taxis in NYC, but there were only 3 crashes with serious injuries. You are more likely to die in a crash in a taxi than get a serious injury, but in a Waymo you are more likely to survive a serious crash.
As far as me ignoring minor incidents that would not have been reported to police, why would I bring that up? There is no information to compare. Waymo might have that data, but the taxi drivers in NYC and human drivers all around the world do not report and so we will not have the data to compare to. Why are you ignoring minor incident data from taxi drivers? Are you shilling for Yellow Cab?
so NYC is safer than other places where waymos drive