According to a 2020 Annual Review of Public Health review of the literature, self-driving cars "could increase some health risks (such as air pollution, noise, and sedentarism); however, if properly regulated, AVs will likely reduce morbidity and mortality from motor vehicle crashes and may help reshape cities to promote healthy urban environments."

Unfortunately, this question doesn’t have a clear answer. It’s obvious that self-driving vehicles, when they perform correctly and under the right circumstances, greatly reduce the risk of driver error. This, in turn, means fewer accidents. At the same time, the still-developing technology does leave some concern about safety.

Self-driving vehicles may not eliminate all risks on the roadway. As we have seen with autonomous features in vehicles, there is still a chance for vehicle accidents to occur. A self-driving vehicle could suffer from both computer and physical defects.

Despite claims to the contrary, self-driving cars currently have a higher rate of accidents than human-driven cars, but the injuries are less severe. On average, there are 9.1 self-driving car accidents per million miles driven, while the same rate is 4.1 crashes per million miles for regular vehicles.