Witherite Law Group's Amy Witherite on Autonomous Vehicle Industry Safety Claims: It Has Always Been About the Money

DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--As autonomous vehicle companies celebrate milestone runs and Wall Street projects billions in profits, traffic safety attorney Amy Witherite is asking the question the industry hopes you won’t: Is this about keeping people safe or is it about the money?

Witherite, a Dallas-based attorney and veteran traffic safety advocate, says the evidence points overwhelmingly to economics as the primary driver behind the rapid push to deploy autonomous vehicles (AVs) on public roads — and that safety claims haven’t come close to being earned.

“The autonomous vehicle industry is not leading with safety, it’s leading with cost savings. When a company publicly states that its driverless trucks cost $1.89 per mile versus $3.78 with a human driver, the motivation is not ambiguous. Eliminating the driver is the product.”

— Amy Witherite, Traffic Safety Attorney

Economics Are Not Hidden — They Are the Point

Industry data makes the financial case openly. According to Goldman Sachs Research, the autonomous vehicle market for ridesharing alone is projected to reach $7 billion in annual revenue by 2030, capturing roughly 8% of the U.S. rideshare market. Gross margins for AV operators could reach 40–50% within three to five years, generating approximately $3.5 billion in gross profit across the U.S. market by 2030.

On the trucking side, the numbers are equally stark. Goldman Sachs forecasts the cost per mile for an autonomous truck will fall to $1.89 by 2030, a figure confirmed by real-world results announced this week. Bot Auto, a Houston-based autonomous trucking company, publicly disclosed that its driverless cost per mile is $1.89, compared with $2.26 for the industry average with a human driver. With a driver, the company’s own cost per mile jumps to $3.78. By 2030, the total market for freight hauled by autonomous trucks is projected to reach $18 billion.

Meanwhile, human truck drivers face a future where their wages are expected to push industry per-mile costs from $2.61 to $2.80 between 2025 and 2030, a trajectory the industry is explicitly motivated to circumvent. The projected savings from eliminating drivers are measured not in millions, but in tens of billions of dollars annually.

“These companies are not hiding their motivation,” Witherite said. “They are publishing it in press releases and investor reports. The elimination of the human driver is the entire business model. Every other argument is window dressing.”

Safety Claims Are Premature — and the Math Proves It

Witherite is equally blunt about the state of AV safety science: it is nowhere near where it needs to be to justify the claims being made.

Genuine proof of traffic safety requires tens of millions of miles driven across the full range of real-world conditions — adverse weather, construction zones, unexpected pedestrian behavior, rural roads, night driving, and the countless edge cases that define the unpredictability of American highways. The data currently available reflects a fraction of that, accumulated in select cities under monitored conditions.

“A 231-mile overnight run on Interstate 45 between Houston and Dallas, as impressive as it may be as an engineering achievement, is not a safety study,” Witherite said. “It is a proof-of-concept for a business model. Those two things are being deliberately conflated, and the public is being asked to serve as the test population.”

Witherite points to statements from AV companies themselves as evidence that commercial deployment, not safety validation, is driving the timeline. One company’s CEO declared this week: “The question is no longer whether autonomous trucking is achievable it is who can scale economically.” That framing, Witherite argues, tells the public everything it needs to know about what is actually being prioritized.

Even industry advocates concede that the safety record, while encouraging in limited contexts, is not yet comprehensive. The conditions under which AVs have been tested remain a narrow slice of the conditions they will encounter at scale. Regulatory frameworks have not kept pace. And the rush to deploy commercially is happening before independent, long-term safety data is available.

The Public Deserves Honesty

Witherite is not calling for a ban on autonomous vehicle research or development. She is calling for honesty about what is actually driving this industry, and for safety standards that are proportionate to the stakes.

“The public highways of America are not a laboratory,” Witherite said. “Every American who drives on the road, rides in a vehicle, or simply crosses a street has a stake in whether these systems are truly safe, not whether they are profitable. The industry has made its financial case loudly and publicly. It is time for regulators, lawmakers, and the public to demand that the safety case be made with equal rigor.”

She is calling on federal and state regulators to require independent, comprehensive safety validation before further expansion of autonomous vehicle commercial operations on public roads validation that accounts for all weather conditions, all road types, and all realistic scenarios that human drivers navigate every day.

“Until that standard is met, the claim that this is about safety is not credible,” Witherite said. “The data isn’t there. The miles aren’t there. What is there, clearly and undeniably, is the money.”

ABOUT AMY WITHERITE

Amy Witherite is a Dallas, Texas-based trial attorney and traffic safety advocate with decades of experience representing individuals and families injured in vehicle crashes. She is a recognized authority on roadway safety, trucking regulations, and the legal responsibilities of vehicle operators and manufacturers. Witherite regularly comments on emerging transportation safety issues affecting the American public.