Data & sources
Where the numbers come from
Prefer official files. Operator dashboards are labeled. Last checked 2026-11-14. If a link rots, the identifier and publisher should still be enough to find the successor table.
| Dataset | Publisher | Kind | Vintage / date | Used for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) | National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) | Official dataset | Final and annual files; 2024 fatalities used here from NHTSA’s 2025 early-estimate comparison table | Rhode Island traffic fatalities and fatality rate; national comparison |
| Early Estimate of Motor Vehicle Traffic Fatalities and Fatality Rate in 2025 (DOT HS 813 800) | NHTSA, National Center for Statistics and Analysis | Official dataset | April 2026 statistical report covering calendar year 2025 estimates | Rhode Island 2024 reported fatalities (52) and 2025 estimated fatalities (37) |
| Standing General Order on Crash Reporting (SGO 2021-01) incident files | NHTSA | Official dataset | Public ADS/ADAS crash report CSVs; files are updated as operators file (operators have up to a month to report) | How AV crashes are reported to the federal government; why raw crash counts are not rates |
| The Economic and Societal Impact of Motor Vehicle Crashes, 2019 (Revised) (DOT HS 813 403) | NHTSA (Blincoe et al.) | Official dataset | February 2023 report on calendar year 2019 U.S. crashes | National economic cost of crashes ($340 billion in 2019); comprehensive social cost |
| Rhode Island Crash Facts 2024 | Rhode Island Department of Transportation (RIDOT) | Official dataset | Police-reported crashes in the statewide repository for calendar year 2024 | Statewide and municipal crash, fatality, and serious-injury counts |
| Rhode Island Crash Facts 2025 | RIDOT | Official dataset | Police-reported crashes for calendar year 2025 | Statewide and municipal crash, fatality, and serious-injury counts |
| Rhode Island Crash Facts 2026 — January 1 through September 30 | RIDOT | Official dataset | Year-to-date police-reported crashes through September 30, 2026 | Partial-year 2026 crash, fatality, and serious-injury counts |
| Rhode Island Highway Safety Improvement Program 2025 Annual Report | RIDOT | Official dataset | 2025 report; fatality series 2016–2024 | Multi-year Rhode Island fatality and serious-injury trend |
| ACS 5-Year Estimates Data Profiles, Table DP04 (Selected Housing Characteristics) | U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey | Official dataset | 2024 5-year estimates (2019–2024) | Rhode Island households with no vehicle available |
| ACS 5-Year Estimates Data Profiles, Table DP02 (Selected Social Characteristics) | U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey | Official dataset | 2024 5-year estimates | Disability characteristics (linked; see notes on numbers we did not extract) |
| ACS 5-Year Estimates Data Profiles, Table DP05 (Demographic and Housing Estimates) | U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey | Official dataset | 2024 5-year estimates | Age structure, including 65 years and over (linked) |
| ACS 5-Year Estimates Subject Tables, Table S1810 (Disability Characteristics) | U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey | Official dataset | 2024 5-year estimates | Disability by age (linked) |
| RIPTA Facts & Figures | Rhode Island Public Transit Authority | Official dataset | FY 2024 ridership | Statewide transit ridership and paratransit (RIde) counts |
| Waymo Safety Impact / rider-only miles dashboard | Waymo (operator) | Operator-provided | Rider-only miles through June 2026 | Operator-reported fully driverless miles and crash-reduction comparisons |
| Waymo–Swiss Re liability-claims comparison at 25.3 million miles | Waymo research page describing analysis that uses Swiss Re claims data (operator-involved) | Operator-provided | December 2024; 25.3 million fully autonomous miles | Property-damage and bodily-injury liability claim rates versus human-driven benchmarks |
| Comparison of Waymo Rider-Only crash rates by crash type to human benchmarks at 56.7 million miles | Traffic Injury Prevention (peer-reviewed); authors affiliated with Waymo | Peer-reviewed, operator-affiliated authors | Published 2025; miles through January 2025 | Injury, airbag-deployment, and crash-type rate comparisons |
| A Rhode Trip: Lessons for the Future of Mobility From the Little Roady Autonomous Microtransit Pilot (RIDOT-RTD-SPR-235-2279) | RIDOT; hosted by U.S. DOT National Transportation Library (ROSAP) | Official dataset | Final report covering May 2019–June 2020 | Rhode Island’s AV shuttle pilot: dates, route, methods, and official findings |
| RIDOT Kicks Off Autonomous Vehicle Pilot Project | State of Rhode Island / RIDOT press release | Official dataset | May 14, 2019 | Little Roady launch details (route, hours, partnership, funding) |
| Highly automated vehicles: laws and regulations | Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) | Research org (not a government dataset) | State-law tracker as retrieved November 14, 2026 | Whether RI, MA, CT, and NY authorize testing or deployment |
| NHTSA grant of FMVSS exemption to Zoox, Inc. | NHTSA / Federal Register | Official dataset | Effective July 31, 2026 through July 31, 2028 | Federal commercial-deployment pathway for a purpose-built robotaxi |
| NHTSA press release on AV performance standards and Zoox exemption | NHTSA | Official dataset | 2026 | Federal AV standards work and exemption volume (up to 2,500 vehicles per year) |
| National Transportation Atlas / Bureau of Transportation Statistics resources | U.S. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics | Official dataset | Ongoing | Federal transportation statistics home (linked; crash costs cited from NHTSA 813 403) |
What we looked for and did not cite
- No official NHTSA or RIDOT dollar cost of Rhode Island crashes for a recent year (national 2019 costs only).
- No verified 2025–2026 Rhode Island robotaxi-authorization bill on rilegislature.gov.
- No verified Newport or Warwick AV council resolutions.
- No peer-reviewed, miles-normalized Tesla or Zoox safety study at Waymo’s published scale.
- Little Roady ridership “33,099” and “11 incidents, no injuries” appear in the Providence Journal citing DOT. They are not in the ROSAP report abstract, so they are not used as statistics here.
- ACS disability and 65+ percentages: official tables are linked; figures are not quoted without a verified extract (Census API required a key from this environment).
- RI Department of Health did not yield a traffic-injury table we could use in place of RIDOT Crash Facts.
- BLS occupational counts for Rhode Island taxi/rideshare drivers were not pulled for this version.