Riddle me this: If a self-driving car traveling east at 2 mph collides with a bus traveling west at 15 mph…is it really Google’s fault?
On February 29th, the Associated Press reported that one of Google’s autonomous Lexus RX450h vehicles struck a public bus in Mountain View, California—marking the first time one of the tech giant’s cars caused an accident. (While there have been over a dozen collisions involving Google’s cars on public roadways, in previous instances the autonomous vehicles were rear-ended.)
This latest collision occurred on February 14th, according to an accident report that California’s Department of Motor Vehicles recently posted. The car was attempting to navigate its away around some sandbags in the street when its left front struck the bus’s right side.
The car’s test driver (who, according to California state law, must be present in the front seat to intervene if needed) thought the bus would yield. (Spoiler alert: it didn’t.)
The vehicle sustained minor damages to the left front fender, front wheel, and driver side sensor. Fortunately, however, no one was injured.
Despite the minor nature of the accident, something tells me this recent event won’t bode well for autonomous cars—particularly, their reputation among critics, anyone on-the-fence, and (just a shot in the dark here) anyone who has to share a road with them in Silicon Valley.
