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7.1 million miles, 3 minor injuries: Waymo’s safety data looks good
(arstechnica.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
I'm going to set aside my distrust at self reported safety statistics from tech companies for a sec to say two things:
First, I don't think that's the right comparison. You need to compare them to taxis.
Second, we need to know how often waymos employees intervene. From the NYT, cruise employed 1.5 staff-members per car, intervening to assist these not-so-self driving vehicles every 2.5 to 5 miles, making them actually less autonomous than regular cars.
Source : https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/03/technology/cruise-general-motors-self-driving-cars.html?unlocked_article_code=1.7kw.o5Fq.5WLwCg2_ONB9&smid=url-share
I agree that "autonomous" taxis need to be compared to professional drivers, and I'd even take it further by combining your two points. If they want to say "autonomous" vehicles are currently safer than professional drivers, they need a way to compare how many humans are involved too. I'm sure we could make conventional taxis safer too if they not only had a driver but a command centre where drivers are being observed and altered to dangerous situations!
Yeah that's a great point! Taxis also drive different kinds of miles than typical human drivers, who probably normally drive at rush hour when it's more dangerous whereas I'd expect taxis to have disproportionately more miles during safer times.