
As the market and interest for autonomous vehicles continue to rise, there are often discussions regarding accident rates and how self-driving cars have the potential to reduce those numbers. Considering the majority of collisions are currently attributed to driver error, it’s a reasonable assumption that an autonomous vehicle could weed out problems like distractions, drunk driving, and more. A new study, however, predicts that the crash rates for self-driving vehicles will not be as low as we think.
According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), self-driving cars may only be able to prevent around one-third of all crashes: “According to a national survey of police-reported crashes, driver error is the final failure in the chain of events leading to more than 9 out of 10 crashes. But the Institute’s analysis suggests that only about a third of those crashes were the result of mistakes that automated vehicles would be expected to avoid simply because they have more accurate perception than human drivers and aren’t vulnerable to incapacitation.”