How does a driver-less auto get into an accident?

Google has a pretty nice safety record, reporting in June that “In the six years of our project, we’ve been involved in 14 minor accidents during more than 1.8 million miles of autonomous and manual driving combined”.

Urmson writes, “Our self-driving cars are being hit surprisingly often by other drivers who are distracted and not paying attention to the road”. Google says its vehicles have not caused any of the collisions, and that in 11 of the 14 accidents, the company’s self-driving cars were rear-ended.

According to an accident report Google filed with the California Department of Motor Vehicles, Google’s SUV was travelling at about 15mph in self-driving mode behind two other cars as the group approached a junction with a green light.

Google’s Chris Urmson spoke about these accidents, claiming they were caused by human error and not a malfunction of the car’s computing or system mechanics. Google has said the first damage including a driverless auto was down to a reckless driver hammering into the back of one of its vehicles.

The following animation show’s the Google car’s computer recording of the incident.

While software and sensors can help the cars take action faster than a human driver, Urmson said in May that “sometimes we won’t be able to overcome the realities of speed and distance; sometimes we’ll get hit just waiting for a light to change”. Traffic was backed up on the other side so three cars on the Lexus’s side braked to avoid getting stuck in the middle of the intersection.

Google’s driverless cars have been in around a dozen crashes since testing. C’mon, humans, let’s not make it this easy for Google’s self-driving cars to win. And while the cars are driving themselves, traffic laws require a driver to sit behind the wheel at all times, ready to take control if needed. Google told CBC News that they’ve considered adding an honking sound to rouse drivers, except the company fears that would annoy the residents of Mountain View.

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.