Car and Driver says Waymo is way out in front.[1] The 2016 California DMV autonomous vehicle disconnect reports are out, and Waymo is doing three orders of magnitude better than the others in miles between disconnects. Waymo is up to 5,000 miles between disconnects, out of 600K miles driven. Waymo reported zero disconnects on interstates and freeways in the last year. For Waymo/Google, this is about 2x better than last year. That was 2x better than the previous year.

Everybody else is reporting orders of magnitude more disconnects per mile.

[1] http://blog.caranddriver.com/in-the-self-driving-race-waymo-...

I'm not sure it's necessarily a good comparison, though. As I recall, Waymo's testing is mostly freeway and suburban driving. I'd be curious to see how much of their testing is done in a heavily urban environment, such as downtown SF or Oakland, and how it affects their disengage numbers.

Waymo's testing is mostly on suburban streets in Mountain View CA, with another test unit in Austin. Their accident reports are usually from Mountain View, and it's almost always them being rear-ended.

Rear-ended is probably a good thing, since that means automation is erring on the side of caution and applying braking when necessary or when uncertainty is above a certain threshold.

Of course someone could make the argument that excessive braking is dangerous, but honestly, the shit I see drivers do behind the wheel of their car weekly (eating, texting, putting on makeup, shaving), I'd prefer excessive braking over any of that.

Many of Google's rear-endings occur at intersections where there's obstructed visibility to the side. The autonomous vehicle moves slightly forward into the intersection, detects cross traffic, and stops. Someone behind them then hits them at slow speed.[1][2]

[1] https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/4a39c1b9-ca1f-4184... [2] https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/69feb1fa-ff90-4b7a...

Sounds like it needed to check for tailgaters before braking, as humans must do in most city driving. This must be improved by now.

Driving like a moron is unsafe times 1. Driving to the letter of the law and as timid as possible is unsafe times how ever many people get fed up with your crap and do something dumb to pass you.

It's roughly analogous to doing the speed limit in the left lane.