GOOGLE HAS BLAMED a careless driver for an accident involving one of its driverless cars, which saw three of its employees taken to hospital with whiplash.
The company detailed the ins and outs of the crash in a blog post on Thursday, explaining how the three employees were involved in a collision during rush hour in Mountain View, California on 1 July between one of its driverless Lexus cars and another car.
Google's Chris Urmson, who leads the company's driverless car project, admitted that, while this isn't the first crash - it is in fact the 14th incident involving the driverless cars in six years - it is the first that has resulted in injuries.
Urmson put the blame on careless drivers who are often not paying attention and thus slamming into the back of its vehicles.
"Our self-driving cars are being hit surprisingly often by other drivers who are distracted and not paying attention to the road. That's a big motivator for us," he said.
"The most recent collision, during the evening rush hour on 1 July, is a perfect example. The light was green, but traffic was backed up on the far side, so three cars, including ours, braked and came to a stop so as not to get stuck in the middle of the intersection.
"After we'd stopped, a car slammed into the back of us at 17 mph and it hadn't braked at all."
Google even released a video detailing how the crash happened to prove that it wasn't the fault of one of its automated vehicles.
Urmson said that the video shows how the driverless car's braking was normal and natural, and the vehicle behind it had plenty of stopping distance but did not slow down.
"This certainly seems like the driver was distracted and not watching the road ahead. Thankfully, everyone in both vehicles was OK, except for a bit of minor whiplash, and a few scrapes on our bumper. The other vehicle wasn't so lucky; its entire front bumper fell off," he added.
Google is using the accident as an example of how self-driving cars measure up with their human-driven counterparts.
"Other drivers have hit us 14 times since the start of our project in 2009 (including 11 rear-enders), and not once has the self-driving car been the cause of the collision," Urmson said.
"Instead, the clear theme is human error and inattention. We'll take all this as a signal that we're starting to compare favourably with human drivers.".
Source: the INQUIRER
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