|
 The crash may be the first case of one of its autonomous cars
hitting another vehicle and the fault of the self-driving car. The
Mountain View, California-based Internet search leader said it made
changes to its software after the crash to avoid future incidents.
In a Feb. 23 report filed with California regulators, Google said
the crash took place in Mountain View on Feb. 14 when a self-driving
Lexus RX450h sought to get around some sandbags in a wide lane.
Google said in the filing the autonomous vehicle was traveling at
less than 2 miles per hour, while the bus was moving at about 15
miles per hour.
The vehicle and the test driver "believed the bus would slow or
allow the Google (autonomous vehicle) to continue," it said.
But three seconds later, as the Google car in autonomous mode
re-entered the center of the lane, it struck the side of the bus,
causing damage to the left front fender, front wheel and a driver
side sensor. No one was injured in the car or on the bus.
 Google said in a statement on Monday that "we clearly bear some
responsibility, because if our car hadn’t moved, there wouldn’t have
been a collision. That said, our test driver believed the bus was
going to slow or stop to allow us to merge into the traffic, and
that there would be sufficient space to do that."
The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority will investigate the
circumstances of the accident, Stacey Hendler Ross, spokeswoman for
the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, said on Monday.
She said the Google car caused minor damage to the bus, striking the
"pivoting joint," or flexible area in the middle of the articulated
bus. After the crash, 15 passengers on the bus were transferred to
another bus.
An investigation to determine liability is pending, she said.
John M. Simpson, privacy project director for advocacy group
Consumer Watchdog, said the crash "is more proof that robot car
technology is not ready for auto pilot."
A spokesman for the California Department of Motor Vehicles said on
Monday it will speak to Google to gather additional information, but
added "the DMV is not responsible for determining fault."
[to top of second column] |
SOFTWARE REFINED
Google said it has reviewed this incident "and thousands of
variations on it in our simulator in detail and made refinements to
our software. From now on, our cars will more deeply understand that
buses (and other large vehicles) are less likely to yield to us than
other types of vehicles, and we hope to handle situations like this
more gracefully in the future."
There has been no official determination of fault in the crash.
Google has previously said that its autonomous vehicles have never
been at fault in any crashes.
The Mountain View Police Department said no police report was filed
in the incident.
A spokesman for the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration declined to comment.
The crash comes as Google has been making the case that it should be
able to test vehicles without steering wheels and other controls.
In December, Google criticized California for proposing regulations
that would require autonomous cars to have a steering wheel,
throttle and brake pedals when operating on public roads. A licensed
driver would need to be ready to take over if something went wrong.
Google said in November that in six years of its self-driving
project, it has been involved in 17 minor accidents during more than
two million miles of autonomous and manual driving combined.
"Not once was the self-driving car the cause of the accident,"
Google said at the time.
(Reporting by David Shepardson, additional reporting by Bernie
Woodall; editing by Chris Reese, G Crosse)
[© 2016 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2016 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
