When it comes to filing insurance claims, Waymo is really Wayless

According this 19-DEC article in Engadget: 

Swiss Re analyzed liability claims from collisions covering 25.3 million miles driven by Waymo’s autonomous cars. The study also compared Waymo’s liability claims to human driver baselines based on data from over 500,000 claims and over 200 billion driving miles. The results found that Waymo Driver “demonstrated better safety performance when compared to human-driver vehicles.”.

The study found cars operated by Alphabet’s Waymo Driver resulted in 88 percent fewer property damage claims and 92 percent fewer bodily injury claims.

I'm now convinced that the roll-out and adoption of autonomous vehicles will happen at a pace dictated by big insurance companies. If they're making more money, it will expand faster and traditional “red tape” of government policy and regulation will somehow magically disappear. You heard it here first, folks. 

Anyway, for now Waymo rides are fun. They're new and interesting and it's kind of cool to watch the empty driver seat operate. The safety aspect is critical, however, and if they're proven to be safer than human-driven vehicles we'll be moving in that direction faster than you can hail a NYC taxi-cab.