Someone once said that this is because Waymos are novelty, and they still behave a bit weird, like being slow and undecisive. Which leads to humans being super-careful around them. So the Waymo safety record is actually not their own achievement. I guess we'll have to wait to one of the two things to happen to really assess Waymo's performance: 1. They need to lose their markings and easily distinguishable features (…
Someone also once said that the Azores are the remains of Atlantis. I simply didn't put any credence in it.
While behavioral changes around a self-driving car are plausible; they're common enough now that, at least where I live in San Francisco, regular human drivers should be pretty well acclimated to them.