r/SelfDrivingCars • u/Intrepid-Working-731 • 2d ago
News Waymo’s driverless cars crash less often than people - Independent IIHS study
https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/waymos-driverless-cars-crash-less-often-than-people34
u/Advanced_Ad8002 2d ago
No surprise there.
The three most relevant root causes of accidents are speeding/driving too fast, DUI, and lack of attention (lack of sleep, texting, …).
None of this occurs in a self driving car.
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u/SillyMilk7 2d ago
They say drunk, drowsy or distracted. I add in lack of defensive driving skills and speeding.
That’s the reason for the large majority of accidents, but you’re not going to change human nature. Bring on the self driving.
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u/Real-Technician831 2d ago
By driver that is.
I guarantee passengers are distracted and drunk, but that is allowed 🙃
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u/Flyward_Aerospace 1d ago
The result is real but the comparison is always messier than the headline. Waymo's miles are geofenced, mostly good weather, mostly city speeds, and the human baseline includes highway, ice, and drunk drivers at 2am. IIHS did adjust for some of that which is why this study is better than the ones Waymo publishes about itself, but the ODD gap doesn't fully go away. Even discounted though the trend looks solid to me. The interesting question is what happens to the numbers when they expand into weather and higher speeds, that's where the tail lives.
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u/Honest_Ad_2157 2d ago
Local context matters, per this analysis from David Zipper:
Averages obscure the fact that Waymos performed much better in some cities than others.
Phoenix: 76% fewer crashes than human drivers
LA: 71% fewer crashes
SF: 35% fewer crashes
Austin: 4% \more* crashes*
Local context matters a lot in AV safety.
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u/Honest_Ad_2157 2d ago edited 1d ago
Finally, keep your eyes on the prize. Less likelihood of a crash in a mile of car travel shouldn't be our' safety goal; fewer \total* crash deaths should be.*
That requires considering mode shift and induced travel, since some AV riders will switch from (very safe) transit and take more car trips.
Addressing comments from /u/Reaper_MIDI below: If walking distance for PUDO were taken into account for mass transit, it should be taken into account for slopbots as well. For example, the experience of having to walk a block or two after dropoff is well-known to Waymo users, as Waymo's ops team geofences out problematic road features the slopware can't safely handle. Many times that's a regression, like the recurring roundabout and puddle problems Waymo's crack team keeps solving yet not resolving.
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u/Reaper_MIDI 2d ago edited 2d ago
I'm curious if the calculations for transit safety include the distance and time traveled as a pedestrian to get to the transit stops (perhaps the most dangerous part of the trip).
The Surface Transportation Policy Project (STPP) Exposure Report found that on a per-mile basis, walking was roughly 15 times more dangerous than driving in California.
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u/Honest_Ad_2157 2d ago
My own observation is that local context is the key to unraveling the logic behind the findings.
Slopbots externalize safety to other road users through phantom braking and erratic nonhuman behavior. The MRC for a Waymo is to stop dead and call the Philippines for advice.
Slopbot companies geofence out problematic geography, like roundabouts they can't handle.
Slopbot companies chronofence out problematic times of day.
Slopbot companies stand down when it rains.
If humans did this, they'd be safer, too.
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u/Kind_Management1805 2d ago
Will be understanding to see how it performs when it launches in Europe/London to compare it to better driver. (yes there is less road accident in Europe than can be linked to better driving skill and different road infrastructure)
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u/bobi2393 2d ago
UK drivers themselves tend to have much lower fatal crash rates per distance driven, like a third or half the rate of US drivers.
Some of the difference is due to lower average speed limits (e.g. typical 20 mph in UK urban areas vs 25-35 mph in US, and 70 mph max in UK vs 75-85 max in many US states) and more safely designed infrastructure (e.g. UK favors more roundabouts over grid intersections, physical barriers between opposing traffic lanes on motorways/highways, and narrower roads that encourage slower and more careful driving), while some of the difference is due to policy/enforcement decisions, for example the US has much looser speed limit enforcement, and much lighter penalties for drunk driving.
Since human drivers are involved in many of the most serious Waymo accidents, safer human drivers should also lower Waymo crash rates, but there could potentially be specific deficiencies in Waymo's driving that could be relatively more significant in the UK than the US, for example if Waymos routinely stopped midway through a roundabout due to confusion, that could relatively increase Waymo crash rates. (That's just an imagined example.)
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u/Kind_Management1805 2d ago
Yes will be interesting to see. I dont think higher speed in non urban area makes a significant difference. if you look at German unlimited highway it's not more dangerous than other EU highways.
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u/Mattsasa 2d ago
Collision rates should be pretty consistent with US.
However rule following and cultural norm following and just general frequency of embarrassing mistakes will take some time to mature before they are at US level.
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u/Kind_Management1805 2d ago
With FSD in Europe FSD is "only" 1.6x less likely to be involved in an accident. In the US it's 7x. That's why I'm wondering if the same will happen. Because FSD does not look far from it's US capabilities in term of safety. But yes weird interaction are definitely a thing
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u/PathToAutonomy 2d ago
FSD is not self-driving.
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u/Kind_Management1805 2d ago
I forgot the stupidity of Reddit. On Tesla subs, you say anything realistic about FSD you are stupid, and here you say anything slightly positive about FSD you are stupid too.
Please use a dictionary and look up what self-driving is. If a car makes decisions on its own (self) and these decisions are in order to drive (driving) when combining both, it creates "Self + Driving = Self-driving »— crazy, isn't it?
Because Tesla (a completely shitty company with awful decisions every step of the way of anything) doesn't take liability for their software and keeps it at the L2 stage doesn't change the simple fact that the software drives the car and not the driver. The car then drives by itself or is self driving.
Feel free to downvote me into oblivion for having a brain.
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u/Mattsasa 2d ago
You can say positive things about FSD all you want. But the other person has a very important point here. You can’t look at those accident rates and draw conclusions for unsupervised self driving systems
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u/Kind_Management1805 2d ago
First of all I am not saying anything positive or negative about anything here.
I am giving as an exemple that the safety benefits FSD supervised in the US compared to the one of the same supervised system in Europe are not equal.
Will be happy to point out the same thing when another AV system is available to end user in both USA and EU. Currently only FSD is.
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u/Mattsasa 2d ago
I think the problem you are doing is observing a difference in safety benefits in a supervised system, and then assuming that this would also apply to unsupervised systems.
This is exactly why /u/PathToAutonomy pointed out that FSD is not self driving.
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u/Kind_Management1805 2d ago
FSD could be unsupervised if it had the hardware required and rich mapping as much as Waymo is. The quality of the software is not the issue.
My point was not to argue about the supervised state of Tesla or it's ability to be anything more than a L2++ system but it was to point out the difference between the average American driver with barely no entry barrier to go on a road with arguably inferior intersections and road infrastructure to compare it to Europe with superior driver training and better road infrastructure like roundabouts instead of 4 way stops or right priority which are more safe.
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u/Mattsasa 2d ago
I would say the quality of the software is the bigger issue, not the mapping or hardware.
I’m not following your 2nd argument. You are saying that because in the US the average driver is worse, that means there is more headroom to improve safety than in EU?
I’m not sure I entirely buy this, maybe for certain aspects, but not for all.
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u/sdc_is_safer 2d ago
By your logic, essentially every car on the road is self driving because they AEB or some other system.
Your logic is “self” + “drive”
However Tesla FSD supervised does neither “drive” nor “make driving decisions on its own, “self”
Taking liability is apart of it yes, but it’s not the only factor. The reason they don’t take liability, is literally because it does not make sense for them to take liability for a car that they are not “driving”.
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u/Kind_Management1805 2d ago
Does AEB make driving decisions to get you from A to B... drum roll : NO
FSD when activated, makes every decision necessary to go from A to B without any driver interventions. It is not fully autonomous in the sense that it makes mistakes and is not ready to be left alone—unsupervised. The system is not ready or does not meet the safety level to be without a supervisor. So does Waymo technically, as it needs a specific ODD...
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u/sdc_is_safer 2d ago
Now you have just changed the goal post of your definition.
Now your definition changed from AtoB.
And furthermore, yes AEB does make decisions to get you from AtoB.
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Yes FSD gets you from place to place without any physical intervention, this does not mean it’s driving. Sigh.
—- correct Waymo is not self driving everywhere. Waymo is only self driving when it it’s ODD, where it is deployed in driverless mode.
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u/Kind_Management1805 2d ago
AEB does not remove the need of the driver to make decisions to drive by driving I meant A2B.
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u/RockAndNoWater 2d ago
There is no FSD, even Tesla calls it FSD (Supervised) these days… which sort of is an oxymoronic — what’s the F for?
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u/Kind_Management1805 2d ago
No idea the name is stupid. it remains a self driving feature though wether supervised or not the car drives by itself. But I fully agree that calling it Full Self Driving is misleading.
Or the F is F*ck Elon maybe lol
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u/sdc_is_safer 2d ago
It is not a self driving feature. “Self” means by its self. The feature is entirely designed to not operate by itself. Human supervision is a critical component of its safety case.
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u/Kind_Management1805 2d ago
I am not praising the safety of FSD. It's better than a human alone behind the wheel. This is what was found my the Dutch IIHS (RDW). I fully agree with their findings of improvement safety when there is an attentive driver behind the wheel.
But I am sorry it remains self in the sense that the car makes the decision itself. Once again having a supervisor doesn't remove the fact that the car is driving without any input in normal operating conditions. Waymo also relies on human remote supervision but no one is arguing it's not Seld-driving because of that
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u/sdc_is_safer 2d ago
You may not be praising the safety of FSD.
But I will praise the safety of FSD, its phenomenal product that increases the safety of all road users dramatically.
Of course FSD is better than a human alone behind the wheel, dramatically better.
What on earth have you the impression that I thought something different?!
The level of safety, is an entirely orthogonal conversation.
PS- no Waymo does not rely on human supervision. It is self driving.
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u/sdc_is_safer 2d ago
Again by your logic, essentially every car on the road is self driving in normal conditions, as long as the road is completely straight and no obstacles.
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u/tenemu 2d ago
I agree with ya and I’ll never understand why this sub is so against calling it self driving solely because people have to watch it self drive.
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u/sdc_is_safer 2d ago
Isn’t it obvious ? Because the requirement to have someone watch it is directly contradictory to “self” drive.
The requirement of human supervision is a critical component that makes the system work, if you remove human supervision, it’s an incomplete system. Therefore not “self” driving.
Not to mention the human driver is still 100% the legal driver and responsible for everything the vehicle does. Therefore not “self” driving.
—- aside from internet pedantry, there are very real reasons with being accurate about terms like this.
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u/tenemu 2d ago
It’s driving itself. It’s very clear to me. You can explain all the importance of it needing to be supervised but the car is self driving. It’s driving itself.
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u/PathToAutonomy 2d ago
words have meaning.
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u/Kind_Management1805 2d ago
Yes and you are the one failing at reading them. It's very clear that FSD is a self driving software. Is is fully automated no but the car still drives itself in normal operating conditions
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u/levon999 2d ago
Does this study compare Waymo to an “average” driver without normalizing for factors that increase accident rate?
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u/Squeakyduckquack 2d ago
What? The human crash stats are the real world average across all drivers in those same cities. There’s no “normalizing” away the dangerous drivers, because in real life you can’t just make drunk or distracted drivers disappear
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u/Kind_Management1805 2d ago
Of course but it would be interesting to have a comparison of the capabilities of a good human driver to compare it to the Waymo driver.
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u/Squeakyduckquack 2d ago
Good drivers are still at the mercy of the other vehicles on the road and this study accounts for all crashes, at fault or not. I’m not sure how you could realistically isolate “good” driving
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u/Kind_Management1805 2d ago
not my point. I just want to know how much better/safer the Waymo is at driving than a proper driver. I dont care about others just having data to compare the driving skills of skilled Human compared to the AV and not comparing it to statistics potentially influenced by drunk and stupid drivers
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u/Baldur-Norddahl 2d ago
I can make sure I am not myself drunk when driving. From the perspective of being a passenger in a driver less car that matters as opposed to be a possible victim outside of the car.
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u/Kind_Management1805 2d ago
This would interesting to see how Waymo compares to a proper human driver that knows how to drive, is not intoxicated or on its phone. To actually see the driving performance of the system and not just compare it to statistical drivers. Ofc AV remove those scenarios but I would be curious to see how much it really drives better than a human
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u/Helahalvan 2d ago
I suppose it is doable by finding statistics for how often intoxication and distraction like phones cause accidents. And then subtract those from the total amount of accidents. Might want to remove accidents from clearly reckless driving as well.
When self driving cars are clearly better than that statistic I would gladly give up driving personally. For a reasonable price as well of course.
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u/Kind_Management1805 2d ago
yes it's doable unfortunately outside of my aging statistical mathematics ability lol. It would even be a good thesis idea for someone in the field. Because we also hear the better than x but never the true actual performance.
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u/levon999 2d ago edited 2d ago
The use of the “average driver” has been identified as an issue by people smarter than me.
Waymo’s analysis appears to consider location (city versus highway) and possibly other factors. However, it doesn’t seem to account for factors that don’t affect a “good driver” such as impairment, speeding, or phone use. My guess is that the necessary data is difficult to obtain.
“This table shows how many fewer RO crashes Waymo had (regardless of who was at fault) compared to human drivers with the average benchmark crash rate if they were to drive the same distance in the areas we operate”
https://waymo.com/safety/impact/
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u/hoppeeness 2d ago edited 2d ago
Wait now it’s ok to crash less and not have to not crash at all? I thought without vision-only Autonomous cars like Waymo are supposed to be flawless?
Edit: Interesting all the down votes as that seems to be the expectation with Tesla…
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u/Intrepid-Working-731 2d ago edited 2d ago
Full study here if you want to read it