This is the first time in the self-driving car’s lifespan that anyone reported any injuries, resulting in four people suffering minor whiplash.
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The July 1 accident would appear to be another example of humans making Google’s point: That distracted driving in the age of smartphones and social media is a growing menace that might benefit from us turning much of that task over to robots.
In a blog post Thursday, the head of Google’s self-driving program Chris Urmson said that the Google SUVs “are being hit surprisingly often”. In this case, there was also a back seat passenger.
Much has been said about Google’s self-driving vehicle and how it’s gotten into a number of accidents, none of which were chalked up to the vehicle itself.
According to Google, the accident was only their 14th in six years and approximately 1.9 million miles of driverless vehicle testing. “We’ll take all this as a signal that we’re starting to compare favorably with human drivers”, says Urmson.
Last month, Google began opening up about the accidents it encounters with its autonomous vehicles.
One of the Chocolate Factory’s fleet of robot-chauffeured pods was painlessly rolling, as it autonomously might, towards an intersection near Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, California.
In eleven of the 14, Google stated its vehicle was rear-ended.
According to the MIT Technology Review, Google cars still can not handle large, complicated parking lots, driving in snow or heavy rain, and unexpected obstacles such as large potholes in the road, construction detours or “a police officer at the side of the road frantically waving for traffic to stop”. Because the cars rely primarily on pre-programmed route data, they do not obey temporary traffic lights and, in some situations, revert to a slower “extra cautious” mode in complex unmapped intersections.
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Self-driving autos have raised reasons for alarm that the innovation would commit errors, bringing about wounds or road deaths. The SUV’s rear bumper was slightly damaged, while the vehicle that struck it lost its front bumper. Honking the horn would be one possibility, but Mr Urmson said he anxious that could annoy residents of Mountain View.
