Waymo’s driverless cars appear to be an insurance company’s dream

Waymo’s fleet of self-driving vehicles One study indicates that this may reduce road traffic accidents. the an unpaid partnership between Waymo itself and reinsurer Swiss Re, noted that Waymo cars result in fewer insurance claims than those operated by people.

Swiss Re analyzed liability claims resulting from collisions covering 25.3 million miles driven by Waymo’s self-driving cars. The study also compared Waymo’s liability claims with human driver baselines based on data from more than 500,000 claims and more than 200 billion driving miles. The results found that Waymo Driver “demonstrated better safety performance compared to human-driven vehicles.”

The study found that cars operated by Alphabet’s Waymo Driver led to an 88 percent reduction in property damage claims and a 92 percent reduction in bodily injury claims.

Swiss Re also created a new metric to compare Waymo Driver to only newer vehicles equipped with advanced safety technologies, such as driver assistance, automated emergency braking and blind spot warning systems, rather than against the full range of 200 billion driving miles. In this comparison, Waymo still came out ahead with an 86 percent reduction in property damage claims and a 90 percent reduction in bodily injury claims.

Of course, there are two glaring issues. The first is that Waymo currently only operates in cities, which, yes, account for the bulk of traffic accidents in the United States, but rural areas account for a significant amount of accidents. number of accidents (especially fatal ones) in proportion to its population. (The study notes, by the way, that including suburban data in key metrics actually contradicts Waymo’s true safety numbers.) Second: Waymo simply hasn’t been around for long. It is very difficult to get an accurate measurement of a system when its real-world testing period is relatively short.

The numbers may look good for Waymo Driver in studies but they are by no means perfect. Waymo issued its second recall over the summer when one of its robotic cars was hit . National Highway Traffic Safety Administration at Waymo and found 24 incidents involving accidents or traffic violations.