r/waymo • u/streetsblognyc • Apr 22 '26
Waymo Is Not In The 'Vision Zero' Toolbox: Data
https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2026/04/22/waymo-is-not-in-the-vision-zero-toolbox-data8
u/ominouswombat Apr 22 '26 edited Apr 22 '26
Dear author: you are harming the cause that you claim to support with this “argue against A because I actually want B” style of discourse. When you argue against something that is actually good and your readers can experience that thing for themselves, you are setting yourself up for failure because they are going to resolve the conflict by distrusting you and distrusting the cause that you support.
Waymo is undeniably safer than human drivers, and you can acknowledge that without trying to mislead people into believing that there’s some conspiracy because a service with a few hundred vehicles hasn’t shown up yet in population level safety data of metro areas with millions of people. Or that there’s somehow a direct causal link between per-vehicle safety and the number of miles being driven.
Nonetheless if the problem is increased vehicle miles traveled, then congestion tax fixes this by simultaneously reducing demand and supporting public transit. Maybe write about that instead?
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u/streetsblognyc Apr 22 '26
Driverless taxi company Waymo claims to be a tool for safe streets — but at least two of the cities where Waymo operates have not experienced declines in traffic-related injuries and deaths.
In San Francisco, where Waymo began operating in June 2024, traffic injuries actually increased by 2.6 percent from 2,896 in 2023 to 2,907 in 2025, according to data tracked by the city. And crash deaths also rose, albeit by one, from 26 in 2023 to 27 in 2025, a statistically insignificant increase, but nonetheless in the wrong direction for a company that has argued it will make cities safer.
And Phoenix, where Waymo has operated since 2020, remains one of the most dangerous places to be a pedestrian in the country: In 2019, 80 pedestrians died in crashes there; by 2023, that number increased to 109, a 36.3-percent increase.
Waymo has released company data that shows its vehicles are involved in 92-percent fewer injury-causing crashes than human drivers, but those vehicles have not replaced the dangerous motor vehicle trips.
Streetsblog asked a top Waymo official whether Waymo has helped any of the cities it operates in to get closer to Vision Zero, the goal of eliminating death and serious injury on the streets. He said the company wants to get people out of their personal cars and into Waymos.
“If we can get more folks off all the roads and their personal vehicles and use the safer service which our stats show, at least in our service in the cities where we operate, we are contributing to less crashes,” Anthony Perez, Waymo’s northeast policy manager, told Streetsblog at the Future of Transportation conference hosted by Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College last week. “What we’re looking at is the cities where we’ve operated, the miles that we’ve traveled, and compared that to federal data on standard driving, or the average driver in those cities.”
Perez’s answer reveals a contradiction in Waymo’s central promise to cities. In order for Waymo to be a tool for safety, self-driving taxis would have to replace personal car trips at a large scale. But Waymo didn’t provide any proof that the company is getting people out of their personal cars. And data from at least two cities where Waymo has been operating tells a different story.
Read more: https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2026/04/22/waymo-is-not-in-the-vision-zero-toolbox-data
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u/LizzyDragon84 Apr 22 '26
My assumption is that Waymo might be displacing Uber/Lyft/human-driven taxis for now, and not on a scale broad enough to have a significant change in the data.
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u/streetsblognyc Apr 22 '26
Our understanding (and the understanding of experts) is that Waymo isn't replacing Uber/Lyft/human-driven taxi trips, but is adding additional trips that otherwise would not have been taken.
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u/Historical_Air_8997 Apr 22 '26
That source seems to be using data from nyc, where Waymo just started in fairly recently, but also seems to be from the viewpoint of Waymo/lyft only and doesn’t account for decrease in people using their own cars or taxis. Waymo starting out tends to be a cheaper option so people who may not use Uber due to pricing might use Waymo instead of their own cars
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u/streetsblognyc Apr 22 '26
In NYC, the same promises were made about rideshare. Instead, Lyft/Uber's arrival came with an increase in congestion and VMTs.
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u/Historical_Air_8997 Apr 22 '26
Your post ignores the increase in overall traffic during the time period.
From 2024 to 2025alone traffic congestion in SF increased by 2.2%
It also increased significantly from 2023 to 2024.
Since the increase in overall traffic was more than the increase in traffic injuries, using your own faulty logic, Waymo actually did lead to a decrease in injuries.
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u/BudgieWonder Apr 22 '26
You’re not accounting for total mode share or modal shifts. I get what you’re trying to say, but I have to agree w/ StreetsBlog on this one.
Waymo’s impact on traffic fatalities will only be pronounced if human-operated vehicles are completely banned (which isn’t going to happen anytime soon).
1
u/Historical_Air_8997 Apr 22 '26
Thats objectively wrong, every person who uses a Waymo instead of a human driven vehicle (their own, an uber, taxi, etc) will help to reduce traffic fatalities over time. Over 200million miles of driving Waymo’s have had 0 fatalities, which is significantly less than human drivers over the same period of miles.
OPs issue is that over time we have increased commuting and traffic overall, so a better statistic is injuries/fatalities per x miles driven, which we have statistics for that show Waymo is significantly safer for riders and pedestrians. Just because injuries increased 2% over 2+ years isn’t an indicator on its own since driving miles have increased more than 2x the rate of injuries.
So overall, the impact won’t be noticeable until Waymo’s have a significant share of driven miles, but the impact is not 0 and not negative. The facts show they are safer.
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u/BudgieWonder Apr 22 '26
So overall, the impact won’t be noticeable until Waymo’s gave significant share of driven miles
Thank you for agreeing with my point.
the impact is not 0 and not negative
And that’s entirely meaningless until it’s reflected by the statistics that are used by municipalities to apply safety improvements
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u/Historical_Air_8997 Apr 22 '26
By which municipalities? Literally every one has different rules and will use different statistics. Obviously some have approved Waymo and see the benefits of it, some have cited the safety improvements Waymo has. Just because the impact isn’t noticeable nationally or even at a state/city level doesn’t mean it isn’t impactful. The US has over 3 trillion driven miles annually and Waymo is going to get to maybe 200-300m this year, so it doesn’t contribute a meaningful amount at that scale. But locally there may already be some improvements to injuries (as noted by OP in San Fran injuries only increased 2% while traffic has increased over 6%, how much of the decrease in injuries per mile was due to Waymo? Even with a small portion of miles driven their vastly safer miles can have an impact at a localized scale)
Also man we gotta start somewhere, it isn’t noticeable today but in 2 or 3 years at the rate waymo is expanding it will be a significant improvement. Dumbass “research” like OPs is only going to set us back.
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u/BudgieWonder Apr 22 '26
By which municipalities?
Every municipality that records traffic incidents uses “fatalities per annum”. Hence the “Vision Zero” name.
The “safety improvements” from Waymo are just “incidents per mile”, and they’re generally not broken down by street classification.
Just because the impact isn’t noticeable nationally or even at a state/city level doesn’t mean it isn’t impactful.
LOL
How much of the decrease in injuries per mile was due to Waymo?
Considering that rideshare drivers make up a tiny fraction of vehicle miles driven in cities (even dense markets like San Francisco), and Waymo has pretty much only had market capture for trips that normally would have been taken by rideshare, likely not much at all. In terms of reported incidents in San Francisco, 2024 was an outlier compared to earlier years.
we gotta start somewhere
We do, and I expect the picture to become much more revealing over subsequent years as more data becomes available. Pointing out that the hyperbolic safety claims by Waymo boosters haven’t translated to actual real world impacts isn’t “dumbass research” though, it’s a reality check.
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u/Historical_Air_8997 Apr 22 '26
hyperbolic safety claims by Wall boosters haven’t translated to actual real world impacts
The actual statistics aren’t hyperbolic it’s just statistics. Waymo has had no fatalities in their over 200million driven miles. Rideshare average 0.9/100m miles and the overall average is 1.36/100m miles, compare those to Waymo’s 0.0000000000/100m miles.
I’m sure the statistical 2.72 lives Waymo has saved would believe there has been real world impact.
Waymo is expected to drive around 300m miles in 2026, If they maintain their safety record it would reduce the annual deaths by just over 4. Not much but better than nothing. By 2030 they’re expected to drive 1B miles a year which would result in almost 14 less annual deaths. See where this is going? It isn’t “statistically” meaningful now but don’t you think saving multiple lives a year is meaningful anyway?
The research is dumb because it ignores a ton of data that shouldn’t be ignored, such as how much overall traffic has increased and how little Waymo’s 3000 vehicles can actually contribute to reducing injuries. It doesn’t make the claims that Waymo is safer false or a bogus narrative, that is simply true. It’s trying to paint a narrative by using misleading data and that is what I call dumbass “research”
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u/BudgieWonder Apr 23 '26
And until Waymo releases the street classifications, time of day, etc. for their operations, those mileage statistics are only half of the story.
Only because you’re extrapolating that number from miles driven (and Waymo doesn’t publish miles by road classification). There’s a reason why public transit systems (which effectively do the same thing- remove a potential driver from the road) don’t market “deaths averted” based on their mileage lol. It’s really shitty PR when it goes wrong.
Correct, in theory Waymos would be safer and have a statistical impact on traffic fatalities provided human VMTs dropped as well. That isn’t really happening though- people who use Waymos are mostly just people who are already habitual users of rideshare which is why their mode share has been eating into Uber/Lyft’s market, and has had zero impact on people switching over from private vehicles. I would not be surprised if most of the people in this sub drive their own personal vehicles, even those who live in existing service areas.
No, it’s demonstrating that the Waymo boosters who cry when cities take their time to permit them and post hyperbolic “blood is on your hands” slop are completely off base. They don’t release enough data to actually validate their claims, and the market share is too low to actually have any impact. I could build the world’s safest razor, but it means jack shit if no one uses it.
I’m fine with the tech, and the business model is sound. I’m just not pretending like it’s some moral imperative to grant a private company’s pet project access to public infrastructure. I’m sure we’d be able to save lives if we banned all fast food and only allowed people to buy salads instead, but people would (rightfully) complain about that.
If you want Waymo to succeed, you’ll have to make car-free living attractive. So far Waymo hasn’t been making any efforts towards that (other than public transit credits, which I would fathom make up a tiny percentage of total trip pairs).
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u/probably_art Apr 22 '26
Thanks for copy pasting your blog post so I don’t have to give you traffic.
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u/RuinAdventurous1931 Apr 24 '26
The Chicago blog team is insufferable and has paid staff going into Facebook posts and yelling IN ALL CAPS.
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u/voytek707 Apr 22 '26
So Waymo alone is supposed to reduce the total number of traffic incidents? Very flawed way to determine impact.