Google’s self driving cars have been involved in two accidents during June of this year – humans were at fault in both of the cases. As we previously discussed earlier this year, the big G set free their self driving cars in Mountain View, California.
Google’s self driving cars are accompanied by two safety drivers on board – ready to jump and take controls if the need arises, but it seems they weren’t quick enough, and two accidents occurred due to human error. Neither of the accidents resulted in injury, they were only minor scrapes.
One of the accidents consists of a Google Lexus stopping at a red light, and the one driving behind bumped into it at 5 miles per hour. There were minor scrapes, and nobody was injured.
The second accident was even more anti-climactic. The Google car was stopped at a red light when the car behind bumped into it at 1 mile per hour – no damage occurred, not even a scrape.
Now, Google is testing their new tech in Austin, Texas. They have take all the safety measures, states a spokesperson. Permits from Texas Governor Greg Abbott, the Texas Department of Transportation, police and other authorities have been acquired by the company, but somehow, they completely forgot to announce this little experiment to the public.
Some say that Google isn’t really acting that legally when it’s about self driving cars – more so, because laws don’t exist for this kind of thing.
But why is Austin the first city where Google has decided to test their new tech? Welp, the reason behind this, according to a Google spokesperson, is that – ” We’ve loved how much Austin embraces innovation.” Or, maybe, how Austin embraces Google spending big bucks on their city.
The June report, according to Google, states that there are 2 Google Lexus self driving cars around the Mountain View area, and other 25 vehicles prepared for internal testings. Of course, we can’ really predict when the big G wants to innovate some more around the world.
Google isn’t the only one developing this kind of technology. Tesla, of course it’s Elon Musk we are talking about, has been developing their self driving cars around the same time that Google has started, but they have a fleet of only 12 autonomous vehicles.
Also, Delpi, the car manufacturer, is developing new tech regarding sensors, and soft-ware based on self-driving systems.
The future seems bright, hopefully Google isn’t going to unleash the A.I. Apocalypse on us – even Elon Musk is afraid of this, and when great minds like him suggest that we shouldn’t dwell that much in A.I. it would be best that we would heed the warning.
What about you? Do you think Google’s self-driving cars aren’t at fault? Or do you think that they are mischievously lying in their monthly reports?