Google’s Autonomous Cars Face Risk from Human Drivers
Engineering360 News Desk | May 14, 2015Google’s self-driving cars have been associated with 11 accidents in the last six years, and evidence suggests the accidents may not be the fault of the Google car, but human drivers.
Google's self-driving car. Source: GoogleGoogle currently has 20 vehicles approved for testing in California; the company plans to make autonomous vehicles available to the public in 2020.
Google has covered 1.7 million miles of autonomous and manual driving with these autonomous vehicles, driving an average of 10,000 miles autonomously per week in California.
When it comes to vehicle accidents, none of them has been caused by Google, published reports say. The accidents mainly involve being hit from behind at traffic lights.
Google says it has built additional safety features into the vehicle to avoid such collisions, such as pausing before entering intersections after traffic lights turn green.