The current generation of autonomous vehicles may not be perfect, but they’re already a lot safer than human drivers. A 2026 Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) study found:
“Waymo vehicles traveled about 50 million miles in driverless operation over the study period, compared with about 222 billion miles by human drivers over the same period and in the same locations. Overall, Waymo’s crash involvement rate was 68% lower than that of human drivers - 76% lower in Phoenix, 35% lower in San Francisco, 71% lower in Los Angeles, and 4% higher in Austin, where the sample size was relatively small. Waymo vehicles were involved in 85% fewer single-vehicle crashes and 81% fewer injury crashes per [vehicle miles travelled] than human drivers.”
The odds are that Tesla’s Robotaxis (along with their recently deployed Cybercabs) will perform at least as well.
This is hardly an untested, emerging technology. Waymos are currently active in 30 U.S. cities (plus Tokyo and London). And Tesla is already running its Model Y Robotaxi vehicles in five U.S. cities, with their new Cybercab so far available only in Austin, Texas.
So why has none of that safety, savings, and convenience reached Canadian streets?
Ontario, to take just one example, is still stuck in the testing stage with no clear route to actual operations. Although fear not: the province’s Automated Commercial Motor Vehicle Pilot Program should be complete on August 1, 2035 (that’s not a typo).
Why not rely on results from all the testing and actual deployments from the rest of the world? You might argue that Canadian winters present unique conditions. Well, Minneapolis, Chicago, and Pittsburgh that are certainly no strangers to lousy weather, and they’re all among the lucky cities enjoying successful Waymo rollouts.
Perhaps Canadian regulators are worried about privacy complications from having so many mobile cameras moving through our cities. That seems unlikely. After all, the federal Liberals just signed a deal with the Chinese government to permit 49,000 Chinese EVs into the country annually. That’s despite such cars being loaded with their own cameras. And also despite the fact that Chinese manufacturers are required to expose their customer data to their government’s security forces.
By contrast, based on fears over privacy and security, the U.S., U.K., E.U., Poland, and Israel have all placed restrictions on the import and/or use of Chinese EVs. Privacy and security do not appear to be urgent Canadian priorities.
Working through the complex insurance, safety, and general regulatory details necessary to allow such a new technology to set itself up can’t be easy. But why does Canada have to take so much longer getting it done than the rest of the world?
This isn’t to say that there’s nothing happening. A quick search of the Federal Lobbyist Registry shows that Waymo employees met with Federal Government officials at least 19 times over the past year or so. Those meetings included representatives of more than a dozen government agencies, including Transport Canada and the Treasury Board Of Canada Secretariat.
Tesla Motors Canada has registered more than 60 meetings, although it’s not obvious that any of those dealt with driverless services.
I for one would love to move past the stress and expense of urban driving. Sadly, all indications suggest that Canadian governments are in no rush to overcome mountains of political and regulatory inertia.
Here’s more for you to chew on:
Is Canada Ready for the Great AI Disruption?
No one knows for sure whether major society-wide changes driven by AI-related technologies are imminent or decades away…or nothing but empty hype. We’re similarly in the dark over the scope of whatever change does come. But it sure would be nice to have some kind of national policy response in the works just in case.
What Auto Theft Conviction Rates Tell Us About Our Justice System
All the way back in March, I wrote about Canada’s car theft problem. In particular, I wanted to know whether the half-dozen or so anti-car theft operations launched by various police forces in Ontario had made any difference.
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Your research provides an excellent analysis of "what is"—but how about looking at "what could be"?The economic model outlined at equitynation.ca aims to replace our current, illogical monetary and tax policies with alternatives that increase productivity, lower cost externalities, and create more competitive prices. Rather than chasing endless regulations to pin down an undefinable tax base, it targets the only base naturally defined by human interaction: the flow and use of money. It also establishes a clear line between currency and debt as mediums of exchange, and money as the actual quantification of production and wealth.