Maybe those self-driving Google cars aren’t so “wreck-less” after all

We’ve been hearing about them for months, and truth be told, I’m still a little shaky on how the whole self-driving car situation will actually work in reality. But California – ever the willing participant to ‘test drive’ these new-fangled technologies – has had 48 self-driving cars on public roads since September last year. So, just how safe have the driverless cars been? 

As it turns out, four of those 48 have been involved in accidents during the past eight months, although I suppose that should have been expected considering their sharing the roadways with the crazy drivers I, too, see out there on a daily basis. Three of the four vehicles involved in accidents were Google’s self-driving cars; the fourth belongs to Delphi Automotive.

But those who are wary of the technology (like me) should take heed – all four of the accidents have been considered minor fender-benders, and each and every one of the accidents was caused by the driver operating the other vehicle – not the autonomous car.

California law protects those involved in the motor vehicle accidents from having to disclose any details of the mishap, but Google did release a statement regarding the recently announced figures. 

Google stated that “its driverless cars had never been the cause of an accident, and that the majority of ‘minor fender-benders’ had been in the form of rear-end collisions from other drivers.”

“Safety is our highest priority. Since the start of our program six years ago, we've driven nearly a million miles autonomously, on both freeways and city streets, without causing a single accident,” Google spokeswoman Katelin Jabbari said.

Delphi, too, provided additional details about the nature of the collision that its autonomous vehicle was involved in. Apparently, it was hit while not moving and at a crossroads and was begin manually driven at the time.  

“A police report indicates the fault of the accident is with the second vehicle, not Delphi. No one was hurt in the incident,” said Kristen Kinley, a Delphi spokeswoman.

Reports of these crashes are the latest to hit the mainstream, but autonomous vehicles have been involved in minor collisions before.

The director of Google’s self-driving car program, Chris Urmson, recently stated in a blog post that there have been 11 accidents involving Google’s autonomous vehicles since the program started approximately six years ago, but not one of the Google cars has been the cause of those incidents.

“Rear-end crashes are the most frequent accidents in America, and often there's little the driver in front can do to avoid getting hit,” he noted.

Via BBC News