Google Announces That One of Its Self-Driving Cars Had an Accident Involving an Injury

Fri, 10/27/2017 - 11:05 pm by Kirsten Rincon

Since Google first started testing its driverless car prototypes in 2009, the tech giant was able to claim that they had an accident-free record, even after completing hundreds of thousands of miles on highways and city streets in several states. But, in May 2015, Google was forced to announce that several of its cars had been involved in a total of 12 accidents, stating that all of them occurred while the cars were being operated in “Manual Mode”. The fact that no one was injured in those accidents did help reassure the public that Google’s cars do not pose a threat to the safety of passengers riding in them or other road users.

However, in a recent blog post, Google announced that one of its self-driving cars has been involved in an accident resulting in injury – the first such accident for a Google car – once again raising questions about how safe the company’s autonomous driving technology really is. Chris Urmson, the head of Google’s self-driving car program, said that one of the company’s Lexus SUV’s fitted with self-driving equipment, including sensors and cameras, had an accident on July 1 that resulted in injuries to three Google researchers that were sitting in the car.

Google said that the car was rear-ended while traveling at about 15 mph near an intersection in Mountain View, California, claiming that the driver of the car hitting its driverless car prototype was distracted, suggesting that although Google’s car was in self-driving mode, it wasn’t at fault for the accident.

Urmson went on to say that three researchers that were riding in Google’s car at the time the accident occurred were taken to hospital, where it was confirmed that they had suffered minor whiplash, and that the driver of the other car had neck and back pain. Google’s car only got a few scrapes on the bumper, Urmson said, while the collision caused the entire front bumper of the other vehicle to fall off.

“The clear theme is human error and inattention,” Urmson wrote. “We’ll take all this as a signal that we’re starting to compare favorably with human drivers.”

He also added that Google’s vehicles are often hit by distracted drivers, urging all drivers to keep their eyes on the road and calling everyone to help put an end to distracted driving.

The main takeaway from this incident is that while Google’s car may not have been at fault, the tech giant still has a lot of work to do to improve its autonomous driving technology and make its cars capable of predicting and avoiding unexpected situations that can lead to a collision, such as drivers getting distracted by using their phones or inattentive cyclists or pedestrians.