Google on Monday revealed its self-driving cars have met with 11 minor traffic accidents since the technology was put into trial six years ago.
However, the search giant stressed that the minor accidents, which did not cause any injuries, were the result of human error. Google’s fleet of self-driving vehicles has collectively logged 1.7 million miles including nearly 1 million miles in self-driving mode.
“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,” Chris Urmson, the director of Google’s driverless cars program, wrote in a post.
The search giant noted that seven of the accidents involved being rear-ended, two of the accidents were side-swipes, and one was a collision with a car rolling through a stop sign. Eight of the accidents occurred on city streets.
“Not only are we developing a good understanding of minor accident rates on suburban streets, we’ve also identified patterns of driver behavior (lane-drifting, red-light running) that are leading indicators of significant collisions,” Urmson said.
“Those behaviors don’t ever show up in official statistics, but they create dangerous situations for everyone around them.”
Google released the additional data about its program following an Associated Press investigation that found three of Google’s driverless cars have been involved in accidents in California since September.
Self-driving car proponents argue that computer-driven vehicles can lead to an improvement in automotive safety by reacting faster to oncoming dangers and keeping a better eye on the environment, reducing the risk of driver error.
“Even when our software and sensors can detect a sticky situation and take action earlier and faster than an alert human driver, 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,” Urmson wrote.
“And that’s important context for communities with self-driving cars on their streets; although we wish we could avoid all accidents, some will be unavoidable.”
