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this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2026
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When there's two deaths total it's pretty obvious that there just isn't enough data yet to consider the fatal accident rate. Also FWIW like was said neither of those was in any way the Waymo's fault.
That's the problem, you can't trust these companies not to use corrupt influence to blame others for their mistakes. It's you verses a billions of dollars companies with everything at stake, that owns (senior tiered leasing rights,) your politicians, both locally, in state, and federally, and by extension the regulators up and down the line.
Do you not know how things work in this country? Given their outsized power we don't want them involved in determining blame for accidents, dash cam footage or no, we've seen irrefutable evidence is no guarentee of justice, even if it's provided to you.
Well Waymo isn't assigning blame, it's a third party assessment based on the information released about those accidents. The strongest point remains that fatal accidents are rare enough that there simply isn't enough data to claim any statistical significance for these events. The overall accident rate for which data is sufficient remains significantly lower than the US average.
They have influence with the police and regulators, and insurance companies, to avoid blame.
They are on limited routes, at lower speeds, so they won't have a higher fatality rate. If you compared human drivers for that same stretch of road it would also be zero. You can't compare human drivers on expressways during rush hour with waymo's trip between the airport and the hotels on a mapped out route that doesn't go on the expressway.
It is obviously false that fatal accidents would be "zero" on the roads Waymos are limited to, it's ridiculous to even suggest such a thing. What is true that such accidents are even more rare there though. It's another good reason for why it makes no sense to solely focus on fatal accidents as they are unlikely to be involved in them anyway due to these limits. That's in addition to the fact that the statistical analysis is simply impossible with current vehicle miles.
Now, I'm not saying we know for certain Waymo is much safer than a human as the current statistics imply, that is going to require more rigorous studies. I would say what we've got is good enough to say that nothing points to them being particularly unsafe.
What do you mean, you are comparing dangerous driving spots to safe driving spots. No shit the highway entry ramps have more fatal accidents than the leisure cruise in the 8 lane road from the airport to the hotel. And yes, human drivers on that leisure cruise would have a different rate of accidents than on the death ramps on the expressways.
Not acknowledging that point, and misrepresenting it, doesn't speak well to your credibility here, it's a simple and unarguable point.
I provided a counterpoint and now you've moved your goalposts to just ramps. The fact is that there is no reason to believe the roads Waymos utilize are generally safer than roads on average. But that doesn't really even matter because the studies that have been done about this do account for different types of environments anyway and point to Waymos having fewer accidents.
The "fault" means nothing to "deaths per miles" statistic though?