LOS ANGELES; July 16. 2015: Google has confirmed one of its self-driving cars has met with an accident for the first time. Google issued a statement on Thursday and revealed its self-driven SUV was involved in a minor accident
The incident happened in Google’s home city Mountain View, the three Google employees who were in the car complained of minor whiplash.
The self-driving SUV was stopping near an intersection when another car came from behind and hit it at 17 mph.
Google’s self-driving car program head Chris Urmson, wrote in a blog post on Thursday.
He said Google self-driven SUVs “are being hit surprisingly often” by speeding cars and distracted drivers, majority of them looking at their phones.
Urmson wrote, “The clear theme is human error and inattention, “We’ll take all this as a signal that we’re starting to compare favorably with human drivers.”
The Onboard sensors showed that the other car did not brake.
After treatment, all were released from the hospital.
Google has manufactured self-driving cars and is testing on roads. In the past six years of testing, Google cars have met with an accident 14 times.
Google founder Sergey Brin stated in 2012 that Google Self-Driving cars will be made available for the public in the year 2017.
Last month, Google self-driving car had a close call with another self-driving car of a different company in California.
