In fact, what these researchers specifically found was that:

• While the collision rate for self-driving vehicles is about 9.1 (per every million miles traveled), standard passenger vehicles’ collision rate is about 1.9.
• Self-driving vehicles are involved in rear-end collisions about 50 percent more often than standard passenger vehicles.
• Occupants of self-driving cars are about 4 times more likely to be injured (than occupants of standards passenger vehicles) when collisions happen.

Self-Driving Cars May Still Be Safer than Passenger Vehicles, Researchers Explain

All of the above findings would seem to indicate that self-driving vehicles are unsafe or possibly even riskier than standard passenger vehicles. However, as researchers have noted, the above findings need to be considered in light of the following facts:

• Self-driving cars have not been responsible for causing any of the accidents they have been involved in – In every accident involving an autonomous driving car, the collision was caused by the driver of another vehicle.
• When the occupants of self-driving cars are injured, these injuries are no more serious than the injuries sustained by those in other passenger vehicles involved in the crash.
• Self-driving vehicles have not been in any fatal crashes to date. In other words, these vehicles have a zero percent fatality rate.
• Data comparisons between self-driving cars and standard passenger vehicles may be inherently flawed, as standard passenger vehicles are driven about 3 trillion miles each year in the U.S. while self-driving vehicles have only accumulated about 1.2 million miles of driving time over their entire existence.

With all of these caveats, researchers ultimately concluded in their study that, “We currently cannot rule out, with a reasonable level of confidence, the possibility that the actual [crash] rate for self-driving vehicles is lower than [the crash rate] for conventional vehicles.”

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Contact a Columbia SC Personal Injury Lawyer at Chappell Smith & Arden, P.A. Attorneys at Law

If you have been injured in a traffic accident that may have been caused by a negligent driver , contact a Columbia SC personal injury lawyer at Chappell Smith & Arden, P.A. for clear answers about your options for proceeding, as well as effective legal advocacy moving forward.

Let our Columbia SC attorneys put their experience, diligence and skills to work helping you. Call our firm at 866-881-8623 or email us via the contact form on this page to set up a free, no obligations initial consult with one of our lawyers. During this meeting, you can find out more about your rights, as well as how we can help you.

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1: A Preliminary Analysis of Real-World Crashes Involving Self-Driving Vehicles