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Waymo’s self-driving cars are and studies show that it can reduce traffic accidents. The an unpaid contract between Waymo itself and the insurer Swiss Re, showed that Waymo’s cars bring in less insurance money than the ones people use.
Swiss Re reviewed the accident results of the 25.3 million miles driven by Waymo’s autonomous vehicles. The study also compared Waymo’s claims to ride-hailing startups based on data from more than 500,000 drivers and 200 billion drivers. The results found that Waymo Driver “demonstrated better safety compared to self-driving cars.”
The study found that cars driven by Alphabet’s Waymo Driver resulted in an 88 percent reduction in property damage and a 92 percent reduction in physical injuries.
Swiss Re also created a new system to match Waymo Driver only to new cars with advanced safety technology, such as driver assistance, emergency braking and blind spot warning systems, rather than against 200 billion drivers. In this comparison, Waymo still came out ahead with an 86 percent reduction in property damage claims and a 90 percent reduction in physical damage claims.
Of course, there are two obvious things. The first is that Waymo currently only works in cities, which, yes, have the most accidents in the US, but rural areas have more. of accidents (especially fatal) according to their number. (The study, incidentally, says that having external data included in the startup data cuts against Waymo’s actual safety numbers.) Second: Waymo hasn’t been around that long. It is very difficult to get an accurate measurement of this system when its real time to test the world has been very short.
The numbers may look good for the Waymo Driver in the tutorial but they aren’t great by any means. Waymo issued a second recall this summer when one of its robotaxis crashed . National Highway Traffic Safety Administration at Waymo and found 24 incidents involving accidents or traffic violations.
