▲Level 3 or higher autonomous vehicle accidents that occurred from July 2021 to May 2022 (Source: NHTSA)


108 out of 130 cases had no injuries
11 bicycle/motorcycle collisions

According to the statistics of accidents involving Level 3 or higher autonomous vehicles in the United States, an average of 8.5 accidents occurred every month for 11 months.

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reported in a June report that 130 crashes involving ADS-equipped vehicles occurred between July 13, 2021, and May 15, 2022.

NHTSA plans to use the accident reports to review ADS technology safety issues and use the data to inform research and policy development to improve safety.

It is difficult to view this as an accurate indicator, as more than one company may write reports on a single accident and the sources are diverse, so the number of reports is greater than the number of accidents.

However, it is certain that we can analyze the data from various sensors of autonomous vehicles at the time of an accident and transparently know about the safety of autonomous vehicles operating on public roads.

According to NHTSA, of the 258 accident reports, 104 were related to telematics, a wireless internet service provided by vehicles. It has the characteristic of being transparent because it is not reported by people.

Among the 191 reports released by companies, Waymo had the most with 62, followed by Transdev with 34, GM with 16, and Tesla with 1.

Of the 130 accidents that occurred, one serious casualty was reported. Although no injuries occurred in 108 accidents, it cannot be overlooked that there were casualties that could have been life-threatening.

In addition, 11 cases were found to be accidents involving collisions with bicycles, motorcycles, etc., not vehicles, so it was pointed out that the safety threat to third parties other than passengers also needs to be improved.

Of the 130 incidents, 90 were in California, the NHTSA report said.

NHTSA said in the report that safety is critical to autonomous driving and that this report will serve as an important metric for evaluating safety.