Google announced that its self-driving experimental cars had been in 11 minor accidents during the six years of developing the technology.
The announcement came from Chris Urmson, director of Google’s self-driving program, who wrote in a post on Backchannel website: “Over the 6 years since we started the project, we’ve been involved in 11 minor accidents (light damage, no injuries) during those 1.7 million miles of autonomous and manual driving with our safety drivers behind the wheel, and not once was the self-driving car the cause of the accident.”
8 of these 11 incidents happened on city streets, with the Google cars rear-ended seven times. Google has fitted a total of 23 Lexus RXs with its experimental driverless technology.
The Silicon Valley giant is actively developing its own version of autonomous driving technology, firmly praising the increased safety that comes with it. “A self-driving car has people beat on this dimension of road safety. With 360 degree visibility and 100% attention out in all directions at all times; our newest sensors can keep track of other vehicles, cyclists, and pedestrians out to a distance of nearly two football fields”, said Urmson.
The post came after Associated Press reported that Google’s autonomous vehicles were involved in three accidents in California since September. Despite the huge faith on this tech solution though, Google is still counting on humans overriding the system on occasion.
“Even when our software and sensors can detect a sticky situation and take action earlier and faster than an alert human driver,” Urmson wrote. “Sometimes we won’t be able to overcome the realities of speed and distance. Sometimes we’ll get hit just waiting for a light to change”.
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