I was always curious about this, it's impossible to find any safety certifications or details about the lidars used by e.g. Waymo. Are we supposed to just trust that they didn't cut corners, especially given the financial incentives to convince people that lidar is necessary (because there's a notable competitor that doesn't use it).

To date most class-1 lasers have also been hidden/enclosed I think (and there is class 1M for limited medical use), so I'm not convinced that the limits for long-term daily exposure have been properly studied.

Until I see 3rd party studies otherwise, I plan to treat vehicle lidar no different than laser pointers and avoid looking directly at them. If/when cars become common enough that this is too hard to do, maybe I'll purchase NIR blocking glasses (though most ones I found have an ugly green tint, I wonder if it's possible to make the frequency cutoff sharp enough that it doesn't filter out visible reds).

Every day dozens of Waymos are in close proximity to the people cleaning them and plugging them in, and they are maneuvering in tight spaces amongst other Waymos. That's not a peer reviewed study, but it seems to work.