# Autonomous vehicles are already safer than human-driven ones

By [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com) · 2024-09-11

autonomous-vehicles, benchmark-crash-rates, car-crashes, data, human-driven-vehicles, mobility, tech, waymo

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Waymo has started releasing statistics for its autonomous vehicles. [Here's the link](https://waymo.com/safety/impact/).

There are a number of important considerations when comparing human-driven and autonomous vehicles. For instance, the two have different definitions of a crash. AV operators have to report _any_ kind of physical contact (property damage, injury, or fatality). Human-driven cars, on the other hand, don't typically report accidents unless it was bad enough to necessitate a police report. So there are nuances to keep in mind.

That said, there is an argument to be made that AVs are already safer than human-driven ones. Through to June 2024, Waymo had already logged over 22 million rider-only miles. And here is what it is now reporting in terms of airbag deployments, injury-causing crashes, and police-reported crashes:

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/f96fa769f7f29a48dede9f9002f02675.png)

All of them are lower than their respective benchmark crash rates.

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*Originally published on [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com/autonomous-vehicles-are-already-safer-than-human-driven-ones)*