Many tech and automobile companies are now working on it and Google is one of them.
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Google confirmed that one of the company’s self-driving cars was involved in an accident Friday afternoon on city streets in Mountain View. As far as we know, the self-driving vehicle wasn’t at fault – as usual, but a commercial van driver ran a red light and crashed directly into the Lexus.
Over the years ever since Google begun testing its self-driving cars on the road, there have been numerous accidents.
However, the self-driving auto was reportedly manned by a Google employee who took over its operation, and applied the brakes when the van’s driver began crossing an intersection, possibly running a red light. There was no question that the van driver was at fault, in other words.
The crash came days after the U.S. Department of Transportation announced effective policies for the autonomous Google vehicle.
There have been at least six crashes in the Bay Area since January involving Google cars on “auto-pilot”. However, all the past accidents are minor ones with minimum damage done to the vehicles with the self-driving technology rarely responsible for any of those accidents. Instead, it is more likely that Google will detail this incident in its monthly self-driving auto report which will be probably be released in the beginning of October.
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Google’s self-driving cars has now so far clocked more than 1.5 million miles.
