“In total, Waymo has reported nearly 200 crashes, which works out to about one crash every 100,000 miles. Waymo says 43 percent of crashes across San Francisco and Phoenix had a delta-V of less than 1 mph—in other words, they were very minor fender-benders.

But let’s focus on the 23 most severe crashes: those that either caused an injury, caused an airbag to deploy, or both. These are good crashes to focus on not only because they do the most damage, but because human drivers are more likely to report these types of crashes, making it easier to compare Waymo’s software to human drivers.

A large majority of these—16 crashes in total—involved another car rear-ending a Waymo. Some were quite severe: three triggered airbag deployments and one caused a ‘moderate’ injury. One vehicle rammed the Waymo a second time as it fled the scene, prompting Waymo to  sue the driver.

There were three crashes where a human-driven car ran a red light before crashing into a Waymo …

There were two crashes where a Waymo got sideswiped by a vehicle in an adjacent lane …

Finally, there were two crashes where another vehicle turned left across the path of a Waymo vehicle …

It’s conceivable that Waymo was at fault in these last two cases—it’s impossible to say without more details. It’s also possible that erratic braking by Waymo contributed to a few of those rear-end crashes. Still, it seems clear that a non-Waymo vehicle bore primary responsibility for most, and possibly all, of these crashes.”

From Understanding AI.