“This afternoon a Mountain View Police Department traffic officer noticed traffic backing up behind a slow moving vehicle traveling in the eastbound #3 lane on El Camino Real, near Rengstorff Ave”, the department reported in a blog post. On Wednesday, the head of Google’s rapid rollout lab, David E. Weekly, tweeted a picture showing Google’s prototype vehicle pulled over by a cop for driving too slowly.
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California law allows self-driving cars to be operated on roads with speed limits of 35 miles per hour or slower. But, unlike so many senior citizens and driving students in similar scenarios, Google’s auto didn’t get a ticket.
The Google Self-Driving vehicle promises to help commuters avoid traffic accidents and navigational blunders, but it still can’t promise to shoulder the burden of dealing with highway patrol.
The officer decided not to give the auto a ticket because it hadn’t committed any violations.
Google’s cars have now driven 1.2 million miles, the equivalent of 90 years of driving experience. “The auto was going at 24 miles per hour in a 35 miles per hour zone”.
The vehicle wasn’t breaking the law!
One of Google’s self-driving cars was stopped by a police officer for going “too slow”.
What do you think of the self-driving cars: Good technological advancement, or a danger on the road? In this case, the passenger spoke on behalf of the smart vehicle. Google says this is relatively common – folks wondering how the vehicle works.
The department said that they meet with Google regularly in order to ensure the autonomous cars are used safely in the area.
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The police officer, once realizing that there was no human in the auto, “made contact with the operators” to “educate the operators about impeding traffic”. “And most importantly, it’s the necessary step to getting them to try it themselves”, the director of the Google Self-Driving vehicle Project said.
