{"id":949066,"date":"2026-07-21T06:08:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T06:08:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/949066\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T06:08:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T06:08:21","slug":"robotaxis-in-nyc-could-cause-more-deaths-and-serious-injuries-than-for-hire-vehicles-theyd-replace-report-projects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/949066\/","title":{"rendered":"Robotaxis in NYC could cause more deaths and serious injuries than for-hire-vehicles they\u2019d replace, report projects"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new study<\/a> out Monday found that autonomous robotaxis<\/a> in New York City would likely be 1.5 times more likely to cause traffic crashes resulting in deaths and serious injuries, per one million miles driven, than the human for-hire vehicle drivers they could replace, while also leading to more gridlock on city streets.<\/p>\n

The report seeks to understand how robotaxis \u2014 also known as for-hire autonomous vehicles (AVs) \u2014 would impact human for-hire-vehicle drivers who could be replaced by them as well as traffic patterns across the five boroughs.<\/p>\n

Traffic wiz Sam Schwartz\u2019s Hunter College research program and the advocacy group Open Plans, the study\u2019s authors, set out to challenge the pitch from AV companies, like Waymo and Tesla, that the driverless vehicles will make city streets safer and less congested.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe felt like there\u2019s a lot of conversation about Waymo and their safety record and how they would make transportation better in New York City, and we wanted to just examine that from a data perspective,\u201d said Open Plans Executive Director Sara Lind in an interview.<\/p>\n

The city had been piloting Waymo\u2019s robotaxis,<\/a> with trained drivers behind the wheel, in Lower Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn. However, Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s administration declined to renew the program<\/a>, which had been launched by his predecessor Eric Adams last year, when it expired in March 2026.<\/p>\n

Kelly McGuinness, director of the Sam Schwartz Transportation Research Program, said that, in particular, they wanted to look at whether robotaxis would make city streets safer before introducing them here.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really wanted to dig into the safety question before Waymos are deployed in New York City,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n

What the robotaxi study concluded for NYC<\/p>\n

The study compares data released by Waymo, on its operations around the country dating back to its 2020 launch, to that on for-hire-vehicle drivers in New York City \u2014 both taxi drivers and those for apps like Uber and Lyft \u2014 compiled by the city Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) and Department of Transportation (DOT). The city data was from last year, according to the report.<\/p>\n

McGuinness said they drew the comparison both because for-hire-vehicle drivers are 14 times safer than the average city motorist and their jobs could be directly impacted by the proliferation of robotaxis.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre these vehicles safer than the for-hire-vehicle drivers that we have now?\u201d McGuinness said. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to bring in a mode of transportation that\u2019s a direct competitor with another mode of transportation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lind said the report compares Waymo with for-hire vehicle drivers per one million miles traveled because the company\u2019s autonomous vehicles drive so much less nationally than taxis, Ubers, and Lyfts in New York alone. She added that it used Waymo data in particular, not to single the company out, but because it releases more metrics than any other AV maker.<\/p>\n

When it comes to safety, the report found that nationally Waymo robotaxis are involved in significantly fewer crashes overall than New York City for-hire-vehicle drivers \u2014 roughly 67% fewer crashes causing injuries per one million miles traveled. But when narrowed to crashes causing deaths or serious injuries, the trend flips, and robotaxis become 1 1\/2 times more likely than city for-hire-vehicle drivers to be involved in such incidents per one million miles.<\/p>\n

Lind said the disparity could be because for-hire-vehicle drivers prioritize safety.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cFor-hire vehicle drivers are professionals,\u201d she said. \u201cThey drive every day for a living, and they are very safe.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

However, Waymo spokesperson Ethan Teicher pushed back on the study\u2019s methodology, calling it \u201cnot scientifically sound.\u201d He said the firm takes issue with both the definition it uses for serious injuries and its comparison of New York crash data to Waymo\u2019s safety performance in other cities.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny meaningful safety analysis should compare data consistently, based on best practices,\u201d he said. \u201cWe also caution against extrapolating Waymo\u2019s safety performance from one place to another.\u201d<\/p>\n

The study also found that robotaxis could lead to more congestion in the city.\n<\/p>\n

The finding was derived from examining Waymo\u2019s performance in San Francisco, California, where robotaxis spend more time driving empty \u2014 known as deadheading miles \u2014 than for-hire-vehicle drivers in New York. Moreover, Waymo\u2019s vehicles in California are likely spending over half of their time without passengers parked.<\/p>\n

But in New York, it is far more difficult to find a parking space \u2014 a reality that could lead to robotaxis spending even more time deadheading.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile it\u2019s challenging to make assessments comparing cities that are not the same, we can only infer that the parking behavior would be even more constrained in a dense city like Manhattan,\u201d McGuinness said. \u201cWe think that in a space-constrained place like New York City, the deadheading miles or the mileage traveled overall would increase.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report also includes recommendations for the city, such as requiring AV companies to compare safety data to the city\u2019s for-hire-vehicle drivers, preparing fees to hit AVs with when they are introduced, and restricting robotaxis from particularly dense parts of the city.<\/p>\n

Lind said the city could apply the last recommendation to Manhattan\u2019s Central Business District, where congestion pricing is in effect.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cNew York City should think about where we want these,\u201d Lind said. \u201cDo we want to allow them into the congestion relief zone? Or do we feel like there\u2019s enough traffic there? And maybe we want to limit them? Especially with a fleet like this, a benefit is we can tell them where they can go and where they can\u2019t go.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new study out Monday found that autonomous robotaxis in New York City would likely be 1.5 times…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":59658,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,10414,94913,344494,382068,4007,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,73625,382069,382070,382071,382072,4009,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,17228],"class_list":["post-949066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-autonomous-vehicles","tag-city-dot","tag-department-of-tranportation","tag-kelly-mcguinness","tag-lyft","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-open-plans","tag-sam-schwartz","tag-sara-lind","tag-schwartz-transportation-research-program","tag-taxi-and-limousine-commission-tlc","tag-uber","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-waymo"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=949066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=949066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=949066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=949066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}