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.
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In San Francisco, total vehicle miles traveled have gone up, and Waymo could be part of the problem, the city’s latest congestion management report claims.
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The more likely outcome, experts say, is that Waymo and other self-driving taxi services, would divert New Yorkers from using public transit, which remains the safest transportation option. Public transportation is 95 percent safer than vehicles, and it requires no new technology. Those who want to see safer streets should force Waymo to address the amount of miles it will add to a city’s overall VMT, another expert said at the Roosevelt House conference.
“We shouldn’t be asking only like, ‘Hey, are robotaxis safer than humans on a per-mile-driven basis?’ because there’s a real risk that AVs induce people to take a lot more car trips or to replace transit,” said David Zipper, a reporter for Bloomberg whose work questions the assumption of AV safety. “We could end up with a lot more driving. And even if every individual, self-driven mile is safer, if you have that much more driving, you have more crashes overall.”