Imagine crossing a Toronto street on a snowy January afternoon. A streetcar is approaching. A cyclist is navigating around a delivery truck. Traffic is moving in every direction, and you are halfway through the intersection when a vehicle fails to stop.
There is nothing particularly futuristic about what happens next. You are injured. Your life is interrupted. There are medical appointments, missed work, and questions about whether things will ever return to normal.
Except this time, when you look toward the vehicle that struck you, there is nobody behind the wheel.
Who is responsible?
It is a question that may soon become much more than a hypothetical for people living in Ontario.
On October 16, 2026, Waymo, the autonomous driving company owned by Alphabet, announced that it is bringing its driverless vehicle technology to Toronto, with plans to begin offering fully autonomous passenger rides in 2028.
This is an exciting development, and potentially an important step toward safer roads. But it also raises questions that deserve serious consideration before the first driverless taxi starts carrying passengers.
Because while artificial intelligence may change how vehicles operate, it cannot change what a serious injury means to the person who suffers it.
Waymo Is Coming to Toronto: When Will Driverless Taxis Arrive?
According to Waymo’s official Toronto announcement, the company’s arrival will happen in stages.
Initially, Waymo vehicles will travel Toronto streets with trained human operators behind the wheel. These vehicles will collect information about local roads, map intersections, and test the technology against the realities of Canadian driving conditions.
The company’s ultimate goal is to introduce a fully autonomous ride-hailing service in 2028, subject to the necessary regulatory approvals.
As Reuters reported on October 16, 2026, Toronto represents Waymo’s first planned deployment of its driverless passenger service in Canada.
That distinction matters. Waymo vehicles beginning to appear on Toronto streets does not mean driverless passenger service has already been approved for commercial operation.
For now, the company is preparing for that future.
And Toronto will present some unique challenges.
Think about snowbanks obscuring sightlines, cyclists weaving around stopped vehicles, streetcars sharing lanes with traffic, construction crews redirecting pedestrians, or a police officer waving vehicles through an intersection when the traffic signals are not working.
These are ordinary moments in Toronto. They also require quick decisions and an ability to interpret circumstances that are not always predictable.
A self-driving vehicle may be exceptionally good at following rules. The harder question is how it responds when real life refuses to follow them.
Could Driverless Cars Actually Make Ontario Roads Safer?
There is a legitimate reason to be optimistic about autonomous vehicles.
Human drivers make mistakes. They drive while distracted, fatigued, impaired, impatient, or simply inattentive. Even careful drivers occasionally misjudge a situation.
A computer does not become angry in traffic. It does not glance at a text message. It does not decide to speed because it is late for work.
Waymo has reported substantially fewer serious-injury crashes compared with human-driving benchmarks across the American cities where its autonomous vehicles operate.
Those findings are encouraging and deserve to be taken seriously.
But there is an important distinction between a technology demonstrating improved safety in certain environments and proving that it will perform equally well under every possible condition.
Toronto is not Phoenix or San Francisco. Canadian winters, changing road conditions, and the complexity of urban traffic create their own challenges.
We should welcome technology that could prevent injuries. As personal injury lawyers, we would much rather see an accident prevented than help someone rebuild their life afterward.
But fewer accidents does not mean no accidents.
And when a serious collision does happen, the people affected will need considerably more than an explanation that the technology generally performs well.
They will need answers.
Are Self-Driving Cars Legal in Ontario?
Ontario has been preparing for automated vehicles longer than many people realize.
The province introduced its Automated Vehicle Pilot Program in 2016, allowing approved organizations to test autonomous vehicle technology on public roads under regulated conditions.
The program was expanded in 2019 to permit certain driverless vehicle testing, subject to additional requirements.
Under Ontario’s Automated Vehicle Pilot Program, participants must comply with safety requirements, obtain the necessary approvals, and maintain specified automobile liability insurance coverage. For qualifying automated passenger vehicles, the pilot requires at least $5 million in liability coverage.
There is, however, a particularly interesting issue with the timing of Waymo’s announcement.
Ontario’s current automated vehicle pilot regulation is scheduled to expire on October 13, 2027. Waymo is targeting commercial passenger service in 2028.
That means the province will need to address the regulatory framework before the planned commercial launch, whether through new legislation, further amendments, or an extension of existing rules.
Testing an autonomous vehicle and operating a commercial fleet of driverless taxis are not necessarily the same regulatory exercise.
Ontario has an opportunity to establish clearer rules before these vehicles become part of everyday transportation.
At Bergeron Clifford Injury Lawyers, we have previously examined the importance of regulatory oversight, evidence preservation, and accountability in our article on driverless car laws in Ontario.
The question is no longer simply whether driverless technology should be permitted on our roads.
It is whether the legal protections available to ordinary people will be sufficiently clear when it arrives.
Who Is Liable if a Waymo Self-Driving Car Causes an Accident in Ontario?
This may become one of the most important legal questions surrounding autonomous vehicles.
In a conventional motor vehicle collision, determining liability often begins by examining the actions of the drivers involved.
Was someone speeding? Did they fail to yield? Were they distracted? Did they ignore a traffic signal?
With a fully autonomous vehicle, that analysis becomes more complicated.
There may be no human driver whose actions can be evaluated in the traditional sense.
Instead, responsibility could potentially involve the company operating the vehicle, its owner, a manufacturer, a software developer, a maintenance provider, or another road user.
Consider a driverless vehicle that fails to recognize a pedestrian crossing an intersection.
Was the vehicle’s software defective? Did a sensor malfunction? Was the system operating outside the conditions for which it was approved? Was there a failure in maintenance or monitoring?
Or was the collision caused by something entirely unrelated to the autonomous driving system?
Those are very different legal questions, with potentially different answers.
Ontario’s existing negligence, automobile insurance, and product liability principles may provide avenues for recovering compensation. But liability will depend on the circumstances, the evidence, and the applicable law.
A collision involving an autonomous vehicle does not automatically establish that the manufacturer or software developer was negligent.
As we discussed in our earlier article, AI and Self-Driving Car Accidents: Can You Sue and Who Is Liable?, these cases may involve several parties and forms of technical evidence that would rarely be relevant in an ordinary motor vehicle claim.
What concerns us is the possibility of an injured person being caught between multiple sophisticated companies, each pointing toward another as the party responsible.
Technology should not make accountability harder to obtain.
What Evidence Matters After a Self-Driving Car Accident?
In a traditional car accident, lawyers often rely on police reports, witness statements, photographs, surveillance footage, and physical evidence from the collision scene.
Those forms of evidence will remain important.
But an autonomous vehicle may possess an extraordinarily detailed electronic record of what occurred before an accident.
Its systems may record when a pedestrian was detected, how objects were classified, whether braking was initiated, what warnings were generated, and how the vehicle responded to changing road conditions.
In an appropriate case, software logs, sensor information, maintenance records, and communications with remote support personnel could become critical evidence.
This creates an interesting imbalance.
The company operating the vehicle may have access to the most important information about why a collision occurred, while the injured person has no immediate way to obtain it.
That makes early preservation of evidence particularly important.
It also raises a broader public policy question: should the responsibility for preserving and disclosing critical collision data be left entirely to the companies developing the technology?
In our view, Ontario should consider clear and enforceable evidence-preservation obligations for autonomous vehicles involved in collisions causing injuries.
A person seriously injured in a crash should not lose the opportunity to understand what happened because essential digital records were deleted, overwritten, or inaccessible.
What Should You Do if You Are Injured in an Accident Involving a Driverless Car?
Whether the collision involves a conventional vehicle, a vehicle using automated driving features, or a fully driverless car, your health comes first.
Seek medical attention, report the collision to the appropriate authorities, and document what happened as carefully as you can.
If possible, record identifying information about the vehicle and its operator, take photographs of the scene, and preserve any relevant video footage or witness information.
The additional concern with autonomous vehicles is digital evidence. Where that evidence may be relevant to a serious injury claim, a lawyer can take steps to seek its preservation before it becomes unavailable.
Depending on the circumstances, an injured person may have access to statutory accident benefits under Ontario’s automobile insurance system, as well as the possibility of pursuing compensation through a lawsuit against legally responsible parties.
The availability and extent of those remedies will depend on the facts, the insurance arrangements, and the law applicable at the time of the collision.
The technology may be new, but the consequences of a serious injury are painfully familiar.
A person who cannot return to work still has a mortgage to pay. A parent dealing with a brain injury still has children who depend on them. Someone requiring long-term rehabilitation still deserves appropriate care and financial security.
Those realities must remain at the centre of any discussion about autonomous vehicles.
What Does Waymo's Arrival Mean for the Future of Personal Injury Law in Ontario?
There is a temptation to treat every technological advancement as a choice between progress and caution.
We do not see it that way.
If autonomous vehicles can meaningfully reduce preventable deaths and injuries, that is something worth supporting.
But public trust should not depend solely on the promises of technology companies or the sophistication of their systems.
It should also depend on transparent safety reporting, adequate insurance, effective regulatory oversight, and a legal process that allows injured people to seek accountability.
At Bergeron Clifford Injury Lawyers, our work focuses on helping people navigate the medical, financial, and legal consequences of serious injuries. We understand how important it is to investigate liability carefully, preserve meaningful evidence, and assess the long-term effects of a collision.
Our firm has deep roots in Kingston, Ottawa, and Eastern Ontario, and we believe discussions about new transportation technology must include the rights of the people sharing those roads.
If you or a family member has suffered serious injuries in a motor vehicle accident involving advanced driving technology, contact Bergeron Clifford Injury Lawyers for a free consultation to discuss your circumstances and legal options.
Frequently Asked Questions About Waymo in Toronto
When will Waymo driverless cars be available in Toronto?
Waymo has announced plans to begin fully autonomous commercial passenger service in Toronto in 2028, subject to regulatory approvals. Its initial activities involve mapping and testing with trained human operators.
Can you sue if a Waymo driverless car hits you in Ontario?
Potentially, yes. Depending on the circumstances, someone injured in a collision involving an autonomous vehicle may be able to pursue a personal injury claim against one or more legally responsible parties. The applicable legal framework, available insurance coverage, and evidence will determine the options.
Who is responsible when a self-driving car causes a collision?
Responsibility may involve the vehicle operator, owner, manufacturer, software developer, maintenance provider, or another road user. Liability is not automatic and requires a careful investigation of how and why the collision occurred.
Are driverless cars legal in Ontario?
Ontario currently permits approved automated vehicle testing through its regulated pilot program, including certain driverless testing under additional conditions. That does not mean unrestricted commercial driverless taxi operations are automatically authorized.
A Final Thought: Removing the Driver Should Not Remove Responsibility
For more than a century, the automobile has been built around one basic assumption: somewhere behind the steering wheel is a person making decisions.
Waymo is challenging that assumption.
And perhaps, one day, we will look back and wonder why we accepted so many preventable injuries as an unavoidable part of human driving.
That would be genuine progress.
But the true measure of this technology will not be how impressive it looks navigating a busy Toronto intersection. It will be whether it makes our roads safer, whether its failures can be properly investigated, and whether the people harmed by those failures are treated fairly.
Because there is something we should never lose sight of as artificial intelligence becomes more involved in our daily lives.
A car may no longer need a human being to drive it. But when something goes wrong, there is still a human being who has to live with the consequences.
And someone must remain accountable for that.
