Self-Driving Cars Could Prevent Over 1 Million Road Injuries Across the U.S. by 2035

In the next decade, self-driving cars could help eliminate road accidents and injuries all over the United States. A new study in JAMA Surgery suggests that self-driving cars (AVs) could prevent more than a million injuries between 2025 and 2035, or about one-third of all road-related injuries during this time. Car crashes remain a public health epidemic, claiming over 120 lives per day in the U.S. and responsible for more than 2.6 million ER visits in 2022. Aside from human tragedy, the nation loses more than $470 billion in medical costs and lost productivity due to crashes, so road safety is an urgent issue.

Autonomous Vehicles Could Prevent Over One Million U.S. Road Injuries by 2035, Study Finds

According to the JAMA Surgery report, the researchers analysed U.S. national road traffic injury data from 2009 to 2023 and projected trends for 2025–2035 with a linear regression model. They looked at the number of collective miles AVs would travel and how much safer such vehicles were than humans. The proportion of AV penetration varied from 1% to 10%, while the safety benefit ranged from 50% to 80%. Best-case scenario, AVs could eliminate more than 1 million injuries nationally.

Self-Driving Cars Could Cut Accidents Up to 80%, But More Real-World Data Needed, Researchers Say

The majority of crashes are caused by human errors of distraction or impairment, and self-driving cars can mitigate them. As per early data from companies such as Waymo, AVs could reduce accident rates by as much as 80% compared with those for human drivers.

Additional real-world data would be needed to fine-tune these estimates, researchers emphasized. Further work will be required to focus on highways, as these types of roads represent the location of most severe injury and fatal crashes, in order to more comprehensively understand the public health burden associated with AVs.