Google has published a post mentioning that its self-driving cars have gotten into 11 accidents ever since it was tested on the road six years ago. However, before you assume that self-driving cars are not reliable, all 11 of the accidents were not the cars’ fault.
According to Google, out of the 11 accidents, seven were other vehicles rear-ending the self-driving car – usually at traffic lights while some happened on the highway. The other accidents involved the Google car being side-swiped and also getting hit by a car that did not adhere to a stop sign. All of these accidents were minor and did not cause any injury.
The Google car stopping (indicated by the red fence) to avoid hitting the other car (purple box).
The tech giant emphasised that none of the accidents were the self-driving cars fault; it even went on to say that these accidents are essentially making the Google cars’ algorithm better. This effectively makes the self-driving cars even safer than before (according to Google, at least).
That being said, Google’s self-driving cars do show a lot of promise. Seeing how the cars have traveled as much as 2.7 million kilometre and have only gotten into 11 accidents, we’d say that is pretty impressive. The question now is: will self-driving cars ever be a thing? Perhaps some human inputs are still necessary at times.
(Source: Backchannel via The Verge)
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