If you are to believe Waymo’s safety stats, they have less accidents/injuries per mile driven.
But whether or not reducing injuries at a statistical level outweighs the downside of autonomous vehicles causing accidents (even at lower rates) is a bit of a dilemma.
I think the style of incidents and circumstances are probably neglected. But, even if they're not, I think there's other reasons we notice waymo issues more. Akin to how nuclear and airplane travel are safer than coal and car travel. This might be true, but when something does go well in those aforementioned fields, we notice.
The human side of those stats, whenever I've seen them presented next to self-driving car stats, has always been an aggregate of all human driving, a vast amount of which is in environments or conditions that Waymo doesn't operate in.
The road to mass adoption of autonomous vehicles probably wont happen in any poster's lifetime on this board. The reality is most people on here are quite narrow minded and can't 'understand' why it is not as easy as "hey I found a stat that shows Waymo is safer than humans!!11!".
But whether or not reducing injuries at a statistical level outweighs the downside of autonomous vehicles causing accidents (even at lower rates) is a bit of a dilemma.