Waymo’s self-driving cars have been involved in 440 crash incidents reported throughout Los Angeles County. Interestingly, despite this number, the company has seen a significant 41% drop in its reported collision rate. This reduction is mainly due to changes in federal regulations that allowed them to stop reporting certain minor accidents.
Between October 2024 and June 2025, Waymo recorded about 9.4 crashes for every million miles traveled. However, in the following year, this number decreased to 5.5, as analyzed from data released by Waymo.
Things got a bit murky with the recent shift in federal guidelines regarding crash reporting for autonomous vehicles. As of June 16, 2025, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration decided that companies do not have to report certain crashes where a driverless car is hit by another vehicle, as long as there are no serious damages or injuries involved, like needing a tow or hospital trips.
The aim of this change was to eliminate minor collisions from the data, especially cases where the autonomous vehicle was stationary when the accident occurred.
The effect of these changes on reported incidents was immediate and noticeable. For example, Waymo’s rate of minor crashes dropped from 6.5 per million miles driven to just 2.1 after the new regulations came into play. However, the number of more serious incidents that required reporting increased from 2.8 to 3.4 per million miles.
Most of the notable decline was in accidents where another vehicle hit a Waymo, which decreased significantly from 5.2 per million miles to 1.8. In fact, Waymo’s own records indicate that in 269 of the 440 total reported crashes, their vehicles were either stopped or parked. Among these, there were 123 rear-end collisions and 71 sideswipes.
Since the adjustment in reporting requirements, Waymo was the sole vehicle towed in 109 of the 172 incidents that needed prompt reporting, and thankfully, no injuries were reported in these cases. This is a considerable difference compared to the 20 out of 41 incidents that resulted in towing before the change.
Waymo documented 62 incidents as head-on crashes; however, it’s noteworthy that the vehicle was stationary in about 60 of those events. The crashes seem to be clustered around areas like Mid-City, Hollywood, West LA, and Downtown. Notably, Santa Monica Boulevard accounted for 27 crashes, followed by Olympic Boulevard with 25 and Venice Boulevard with 20.
It’s important to note that police reports seem to capture only a fraction of these minor incidents. In Los Angeles, just 23 out of 304 reported crashes without injuries were documented in police reports. In fact, Santa Monica police recorded zero reports from 22 similar incidents.
Out of 58 crashes where someone mentioned an injury, 39 referred to alleged injuries from passengers, yet none of these cases involved serious injuries or fatalities.
Meanwhile, other companies like Tesla and Amazon are also venturing into autonomous vehicle services in Los Angeles. Tesla has been sighted testing its Cybercab prototypes in local areas as they develop their self-driving technology. Amazon’s Zoox is on the streets too, using modified Toyota Highlander SUVs enhanced with sensors and cameras for their testing, although neither company currently provides public autonomous rides in the city.
