Would you get in the car without a driver?
I would. And I’m actively seeking them out. I just haven’t been somewhere where they are yet.
The first reason is pure engineering curiosity. When I take my first ride in one, I’ll be watching everything it does from the engineer point of view.
Second, I’m a believer. They’ll be safer than human drivers. Yes, there will be some spectacular failures, and people will be injured. That won’t be great, and I just pray I’m not one of those statistics. But on the whole, it will be much better.
As for safety, here are some statistics as of August 2026 for both robotaxis and humans:
| Injury outcome | Robotaxi incidents | Robotaxi incidents per 1M miles | U.S. human incidents | Human incidents per 1M miles |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Injury without hospitalization | 51 | 0.35 | ~1,524,000 | ~680 |
| Injury with hospitalization | 27 | 0.19 | ~133,000 | ~59 |
| Fatalities | 1 | 0.007 | ~22,200 | ~9.9 |
Collated data from NHTSA.gov data.
OK, given the highly curated driving scenarios of robotaxis, this might not be exactly apples-to-apples, but come on, robotaxis are orders of magnitude safer than people.
Would you do it?
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