Just when driverless taxis looked like they would become more widely used in major cities, we saw that they might not be ready just yet after Cruise's series of accidents. However, things are looking good for driverless taxi operations again after Waymo's injury report.
Waymo Reports Fewer Injuries
The company released its injury report showing that driverless taxis are capable of being the safer transportation option. Waymo had just collectively reached 7.1 million miles across three cities, and there are only three minor injuries that were reported as of October 2023.
With 5.3 million miles in Arizona, the driverless taxi service caused one accident wherein it braked to avoid hitting a fallen branch. This caused a three-car pileup, which caused minor injuries to the passenger who was not wearing a seatbelt.
Another incident, also in Arizona, saw the Waymo robotaxi driving in a left lane and speeding up as it detected a vehicle that was traveling at high speeds behind it. Even though it tried to accelerate to avoid a collision, it still got hit in the rear. The resulting injuries were also labeled minor.
The second most traveled location was San Francisco, where Waymo had traveled 1.8 million miles. The fewest would be in Los Angeles, where the service had only traveled a couple thousand miles, as reported by Ars Technica.
The data provided by the company shows that vehicles with humans behind the wheel are more likely to be involved in vehicular incidents. In some calculations, driverless taxis can be as much as four to seven times safer when it comes to crashes.
In fact, the numbers might actually be an understatement since Waymo expressed that human drivers don't always report crashes. An estimated one-third of accidents remain unreported, which means that Waymo could even be safer by up to five times.
Three minor injuries can be seen as a win for the Google-backed self-driving project, especially with the incidents that Cruise has gone through that may affect the expansion of the driverless taxi service in other cities.
Cruise's Unfortunate Suspension
Unfortunately for the General Motors driverless taxi service, it did not have the same record as Waymo. One major incident caused the DMV to lose confidence in the company's safety, which led to its suspension in California.
The incident in question was when a Cruise taxi pinned a woman under it after it was thrown in its path after it was hit by a human driver. The vehicle detected her as an obstacle but only managed to stop when the woman was already run over.
Since then Cruise executives have already left the company. Cruise's CEO, CTO, and President Kyle Vogt resigned, which was quickly followed by Chief Product Officer Daniel Kan. Both started the company 10 years ago, according to Gizmodo.
Due to the recent events, General Motors ultimately decided to reduce the spending for its Cruise driverless robotaxis. Instead of expanding to three other cities, the company will just extend its service to one.
