Google’s Self-Driving Cars Report Minor Accidents

A vehicle without a human driver may be a thing of the future, but Google’s self-driving cars report minor accidents on the road. The company’s new projects have been mapping out streets and cruising along the roads for testing, but it hasn’t been without minor incidents. As much as that might refute their idea of safety, the company was quick to respond.

In their most recent monthly report, Google claims that two of their driverless cars have been rear ended at stop signs and that both accidents were caused by human error. The damage was minimal, but it has been stated that one has seen some scratches on its rear bumper after a five miles per hour collision while the other was virtually unharmed.

These have not been the first accidents ever reported by Google’s self-driving cars, but there certainly haven’t been many since it decided to make the information open to the public. After being pressed by activists, the company decided to create a website that posts updates and accidents alike, to prove their confidence in the project.

Self-driving cars could be what the future holds for traffic worldwide. Other companies such as Ford and Uber have joined Google in creating a perfectly safe vehicle that requires no human involvement on the road. It has caught the attention of the tech community and it’s gaining popularity very quickly.

To this day, all the self-driving cars have provided excellent results and promising reviews. Google’s project reported only 14 minor accidents in all its six years of development and 1,8 miles of travel on both automatic and manual driving. That seems to beat the statistics for the average driver, without even taking speeding or parking tickets into consideration.

A setback seemed imminent when a similar Delphi auto company suggested to a known publication that a Google self-driving vehicle nearly caused an accident when it cut off their Audi Q5, but has since retracted their statement after Google claimed it to be false. It’s still not sure where the truth lies as the publication refused to disprove their initial article, but both companies clarified that there had been no close call, only a misunderstanding of the coding.

The self-driving car market is expected to explode around 2020, with Google at the top. These vehicles are not only advertised as safer, but as being more energy efficient and practical to take on the road. Google’s small sized car may be oddly shaped and perhaps it does not have the aesthetically pleasing, dynamic design of today’s cars, but they might be crowding our streets sooner than expected.

Image source: argyllfreepress.com