First injury in Google self-driving crash | Auto

Google’s self-driving vehicle has met with an accident causing injury. “We took our drivers to visit a local hospital purely as a precautionary measure because they were experiencing minor whiplash; they were checked out briefly and sent home”.

“Our self-driving cars are being hit surprisingly often by other drivers who are distracted and not paying attention to the road”, he added. “The clear theme is human error and inattention” in those incidents. In May, he wrote a blog post revealing that Google’s self-driving cars had been involved in 11 minor accidents during the past six years. He continued, “We’ll take all this as a signal that we’re starting to compare favorably with human drivers”.

A pair of self-driving cars from Google (GOOGL, Tech30) and auto parts maker Delphi (DLPH)reported having a near miss on a street near Google’s headquarters late last month, but both cars managed to avoid each other at the last moment. “The driver of the other vehicle also complained of neck and back pain”. There were also two passengers. Within a fraction of a second, another vehicle rear-ended the Google auto at the speed of 17 miles per hour.

Google is testing a fleet of 23 specially equipped Lexus prototypes, and said it has logged more than 1 million test miles.

Since 2009, Google’s cars have been involved in 14 crashes.

Urmson noted that none of the accidents in which people hit a self-driving vehicle resulted in a police report, even the July 1 crash, although the police were on-site.

In California the law says testing of driver-less cars should have human seated for taking control during emergency and companies who are developing the vehicles should report to the state DMV about the crash within ten days from the date of collision. The self-driving auto had normal and natural braking, allowing the followers plenty of stopping distance, but the auto that rammed into the back of the SUV never decelerated.

The autonomous SUV only faced a minor dent on the rear bumper fortunately, but the other vehicle was not so lucky, as its entire bumper separated itself from the vehicle.