Google’s self-driving cars may have had their first accident, according to car gossip webiste Jalopnik. One of the search engine giant’s converted Prius cars is believed to have been involved in a crash with another Prius.
According to the Silicon-Valley giant, the car was being manually driven at the time of the crash, so has no bearing on the technology with which the car usually operates.
It is believed that the autonomous Prius rear-ended another Prius, although it appears that no-one was hurt. The self-driving models are meant to be near impossible to crash, thanks to their computerised nature.
Google is currently trialling the self-driving cars on real roads in California and has recently gained permission to run them on public roads in Nevada too. This has given the firm the green light to rack up hundreds of miles in its self-controlled cars, which sense their way around using a series of lasers and imaging systems to avoid collision with other vehicles and objects.
At all times, these vehicles are manned by a human driver who can override the car’s controls, it seems that a Google spokesperson may be pointing the finger of blame at this human counterpart, but details appear sketchy.
Google is hoping that autonomous cars such as the ones it is trialling will someday help eliminate the element of driver error often blamed for crashes. Self-driving cars could eventually help reduce accidents and congestion, improving journey times and cutting excess emissions caused by traffic jams.
