Humans Faulted in Autonomous Vehicle Accidents

Reports from the California DMV blame human drivers for minor collisions involving Google's self-driving cars. Drive carefully in Mountain View.

1 minute read

October 28, 2015, 10:00 AM PDT

By Philip Rojc @PhilipRojc


Google Self-Driving Car

Roman Boed / Flickr

Apparently, Google's fleet of autonomous test vehicles is largely blameless in several minor accidents involving the drivers of other vehicles. While many of us still have doubts about safety in a self-driver, "now that the reports have been published by the DMV, details show exactly how each accident occurred, and there really is no doubt that human error played a key part in each and every incident."

However, the reports do seem to indicate wide differences between how humans and autonomous vehicles handle the road. From the article: "The majority of the collisions involve a car behind one of Google's self-driving cars not stopping in time or speeding up too fast at an intersection, and hitting the rear bumper of one of Google's cars."

Programming missteps may be to blame: "There is at least one accident that stands out, as it shows how Google's autonomous cars may actually be too cautious, and that in itself could cause a collision."

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