Half of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) Crashes Are Waymos

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jan 9, 9:15AM EST

24/7 Wall St. Key Points

A recent analysis of autonomous and driver-assisted incidents reveals that over half of them involved Waymo-powered vehicles.
The industry seems far from passengers being able to ignore the road and sleep or read books.

Follow 24/7 Wall St. on Google

This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

Half of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) Crashes Are Waymos — © Kwangmoozaa / Getty Images

A new study from Bumper examined crashes involving Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and full-fledged Automated Driving Systems (ADS). The review analyzed 2,150 reported incidents using data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Just over half of the incidents involved Waymo-powered vehicles. Though Waymo has tested the largest number of “self-driving” vehicles, the figure is nevertheless concerning.

Not all crashes are the same. Eighty-two percent involved only property damage. Another 15% involved injuries, and just over 2% involved fatalities. The total number of incidents increased over time. The report says, “By early 2025, the system saw an unprecedented surge that dwarfed the previous years combined.”

Based on the locations of test cities over time, it is not surprising that 57% happened in California, while 16% were in Arizona. Additionally, 46% happened on open roads and 31% at intersections.

Accidents involving Waymo vehicles accounted for 50.23% of the total. Tesla had 8.51%, and GM’s number was 7.63%.

While some people would look at the figures and say the number of accidents is small compared to the millions of miles of testing, the question is why they happened at all. Self-driving technology is marketed as so safe that people will eventually be able to ignore the road and sleep or read books. These accident reports indicate that the industry is far from that.

Waymo’s Robotaxi Lead Widens as Tesla Plays Catch-Up in the Autonomous Race

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.