“A peer-reviewed study to be published in Traffic Injury Prevention examined 56.7 million miles of Waymo’s Rider-Only (RO) service – vehicles operating without a human behind the wheel – and found substantial safety improvements across multiple crash types.

The most striking result came from intersection crashes, which showed a 96% reduction in injury-reported incidents compared to human benchmarks. Intersection collisions represent one of the most dangerous and common crash scenarios on American roads…

Beyond intersections, the Waymo vehicles demonstrated significant safety improvements in crashes involving cyclists (82% reduction), motorcyclists (82%), pedestrians (92%), single-vehicle incidents (93%), and side-impact collisions (74%) compared to human drivers in the same geographic areas.

The researchers took careful steps to ensure a fair comparison, adjusting for factors like vehicle type, road type, and the specific locations where Waymo operates.”

From ScienceBlog.