Waymo says new study shows Waymo reduces serious crashes

Alphabet’s (GOOGL) (GOOG) Waymo said that its latest research paper shows that the Waymo Driver is making “significant strides” in reducing severe crashes and improving safety. By reducing the most dangerous crashes and providing better protection for pedestrians, cyclists, and other vulnerable road users, Waymo is making streets safer in cities where it operates, the company said. The paper, accepted to be published in the Traffic Injury Prevention Journal, expands on the company’s Safety Impact Hub research, providing a deeper analysis of Waymo’s performance across 11 different crash types compared to human drivers. It also offers new insights into Waymo’s positive impact on serious injury crash rates. The research finds that, compared to human benchmarks over 56.7M miles and regardless of who was at fault, the Waymo Driver had: Safer interactions with vulnerable road users with substantial reductions in crashes involving injuries among pedestrians, a 92% reduction, cyclists, an 82% reduction, and motorcyclists, an 82% reduction; 96% fewer injury-involving intersection crashes, which, according to NHTSA, are a leading cause of severe road harm for human drivers, and; 85% fewer crashes with suspected serious or worse injuries. Building on our previous research, which demonstrated Waymo’s significant reductions across all injuries combined, the new study provides early evidence for similar benefits in serious injuries alone. The results are statistically significant but because serious injury cases are, fortunately, rare, they’re based on a small number of events.