Google self-driving car was only going by 2mph

Mar 1, 2016 08:57 GMT  ·  By

The myth surrounding Google's self-driving car project has dispersed as one of its autonomous vehicles caused the first accident in which its software was at fault.

According to a report made public by California's Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) on Monday, a Google car, running in autonomous mode, tried to change lanes and hit a bus. The accident happened on February 14 in Mountain View, California, around Google's main headquarters, and had no casualties.

The DMV report says that the accident occurred at a traffic light. As the Google car approached the intersection wanting to make a right turn, it signaled and entered the right side of the lane so it could make the turn.

When the traffic light turned green and cars started moving, the Google car's AI detected some sandbags positioned around a storm drain. It then moved to go around them, but this also involved making a slight left turn, re-entering the lane on its left.

A bus driver coming through the road's middle lane, to the left of the Google car, did not notice the AI's intention and struck the car. The bus was going 15 m/h (25 Km/h) while the Google car only 2 m/h (3 Km/h).

Human driver did not intervene to stop the accident

During their testing phase, all Google Automotive cars are required to have a human driver behind the wheel at all times, ready to take over controls.

In this case, the driver reported that he did not intervene because he thought the AI would notice the bus and stop, or that the bus would also see the car going around the sandbags and stop to allow it to maneuver around them.

Technically, the Google car (a modified Lexus) is to blame for the car crash, making this the first road accident in which one of Google's self-driving cars was involved for which it was at fault.

Google's cars have been involved in numerous car crashes from the moment they were allowed on public roads, but in all cases, the other drivers were at fault.