Search

Home > More or Less: Behind the Stats > Are self-driving cars safer than cars with drivers?
Podcast: More or Less: Behind the Stats
Episode:

Are self-driving cars safer than cars with drivers?

Category: News & Politics
Duration: 00:08:58
Publish Date: 2025-08-30 05:00:00
Description:

Fully autonomous cars are here. In a handful of cities across the US and China, robotaxis are transporting human passengers around town, but with no human behind the wheel.

Loyal Listener Amberish wrote in to More or Less to ask about a couple of safety statistics he’d seen regarding these self-driving cars on social media. These claimed that Waymo self-driving taxis were five times safer than human drivers in the US, and that Tesla’s self-driving cars are 10 times safer.

But, are these claims true?

We speak to Mark MacCarthy, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution Center for Technology Innovation, to find out.

If you’ve seen some numbers you think we should look at, email the team: moreorless@bbc.co.uk

Presenter: Lizzy McNeill Producer: Nicholas Barrett Series producer: Tom Colls Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown Sound mix: Neil Churchill Editor: Richard Vadon

Total Play: 0

Users also like

300+ Episodes
Best of Natu .. 200+     10+
200+ Episodes
The Infinite .. 1K+     100+
2K+ Episodes
Farming Toda .. 100+     10+
300+ Episodes
In Our Time: .. 400+     40+
400+ Episodes
Friday Night .. 1K+     200+

Some more Podcasts by BBC

2K+ Episodes
Six O'Clock .. 500+     100+
5 Episodes
The High Str .. 100+     5
900+ Episodes
Seriously... 300+     30+
400+ Episodes
In Touch 40+     2
1K+ Episodes
HARDtalk 400+     70+
100+ Episodes
Eye of the S .. 30+     3
600+ Episodes
The Inquiry 600+     40+
30+ Episodes
At Lunch Wit .. 5     1