Google’s self-driving vehicle pulled over for travelling too slowly

The Google Self-Driving auto 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.

In response to the stop, the Mountain View Police Department pointed out it meets regularly with Google to address road safety.

Since Google Headquarters is under the Mountain View Police Department jurisdiction, they have frequent meetings to ensure that the Google auto operates safely around the community. The auto braked and another vehicle went into the back of it.

The Mountain View police did howver file a report where the Google automated auto was described as “over-cautious”.

“As the officer approached the slow moving auto he realized it was a Google Autonomous Vehicle”, a police department post said.

“We’ve capped the speed of our prototype vehicles at 25 miles per hour for safety reasons”, the post said.

Representatives of Google’s self-driving auto project have said that in recent months they’ve been trying to program the vehicles to drive less like robots and more like people — in part to reduce the number of times they are hit by other drivers expecting certain driving behavior.

Apparently, a traffic police officer noticed traffic backing up behind a slow moving vehicle traveling in the eastbound lane near Rengstorff Ave.

For its part, the Google Self-Driving auto Project seemed proud of the whole affair.

According to a January study by industry research firm IHS Automotive, as many as 250,000 self-driving cars could be sold each year globally by 2025.

That the vehicle was not ticketed is significant. The self- driving auto had every right to be on the road it was stopped on since Google cars are allowed to be operated on roadways with speed limits as high as 35 miles per hour.

Google is just one of several companies that are working on self-driving vehicle prototypes. You can see a photo here.