Waymo robo-taxis safer than humans by 68% in IIHS study, but data limits temper the finding

IIHS analyzed 2021–2024 crash data and found Waymo’s autonomous taxis had 68% fewer police-reported crashes per million miles than the average human driver (1.28 vs 4.06) over about 50 million Waymo miles, with crashes typically less severe and not primarily Waymo’s fault. However, data limitations—such as miles driven not uniformly reported, exclusion of highway miles, and small-sample effects in Austin—mean the finding should be interpreted cautiously when comparing robo-taxis to an 'average' human driver.