So, lots of folks are still a little unsure about driverless cars, right? But check this out: Waymo’s giving over a million rides every month! That’s pretty wild. Now, it’s not all sunshine and roses. These self-driving taxis don’t have a spotless record. When you dig into the crash data that Waymo shares, turns out most of the time, it’s other people messing up – drivers and people walking, you name it.
Ars Technica did a breakdown and found that Waymo cars were in 38 crashes between July of last year and February of this year. Get this: in 34 of those accidents, other people were at fault! Waymo usually keeps track of anything big enough to set off an airbag or cause someone to get hurt. What’s really interesting is that in 16 crashes, the Waymo taxis were just sitting still. And seven times, other drivers ran into the back of them. Three times, a Waymo passenger opened a door right into traffic – a car or someone on a bike. Ouch!
Now, there were four times when Waymo might have been a little to blame. In three of those, another car turned left right in front of the Waymo taxi. Timothy B. Lee from Ars Technica said that Waymo makes it sound like the other driver was at fault, but it’s hard to say for sure without all the info. The last time, a Waymo car pushed a plastic crate into the street in Los Angeles, and it got in the way of someone on a scooter.
The numbers seem to say that regular drivers are often more of a danger to these driverless taxis. But, hey, these machines aren’t perfect either. Remember that time a Waymo car kept going around and around in a roundabout in Arizona? Or when they were honking at each other in a San Francisco parking lot? That makes you wonder how good these things really are. AAA did a survey this year about self-driving cars, and 61% of the people they talked to are afraid of them. Thing is, that’s actually better than the last couple of years – it was 68% in 2023 and 66% in 2024. So, maybe people are starting to get used to them, but we’ve still got a ways to go before everyone’s completely sold on the idea!
