Alphabet’s self-driving taxi company Waymo this week released massive amounts of data concerning its safety record as part of a new online safety hub aimed at capturing customer trust.
The robotaxi firm launched the Waymo Safety Impact page Thursday featuring dozens of charts and figures that promote the safety record of the autonomous vehicles.
“The data to date indicates the Waymo Driver is already making roads safer in the places where we currently operate,” the company wrote on the page. “Specifically, the date below demonstrates that the Waymo Driver is better than humans at avoiding crashes that result in injuries, airbag deployments and police reports.”
Compared with the human benchmark, Waymo reported that its vehicles were involved in 73% fewer injury-causing crashes, 48% fewer police-reported crashes and 84% fewer airbag deployment crashes.
The new safety hub is the newest batch of data to come out of Waymo since late 2023 when the company reported just over 7 million miles driven. As the new data reports, Waymo vehicles have more than tripled the number of autonomous miles driven, with its vehicles driving over 22 million miles since launch.
Waymo operates robotaxis in three main cities — Los Angeles, San Francisco and Phoenix — and runs about 300 vehicles.
Waymo’s numbers add context to the crash data the company is required to report under the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Standing General Order.
The safety hub could go a long way in convincing weary customers and regulators that Waymo’s robotaxis are safe.
Earlier this year, NHTSA investigators opened an investigation into Waymo after receiving reports of more than two dozen collisions involving the autonomous taxis.
• Vaughn Cockayne can be reached at vcockayne@washingtontimes.com.
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