It appears that though self-driving technology in Google cars is proving its worth in terms of safety, there's just no legislating for other drivers - apparently, the autonomous vehicles have been involved in 11 accidents in the six years since the project began, and each and every time it has been the human driving the other vehicle(s) involved that's been to blame.
Chris Urmson, the director of Google's self-driving cars programme, said that during the 2.7 million kilometres the 20-strong fleet of cars has covered so far "not once was the self-driving car the cause of any accident". They have been hit from behind seven times, usually at traffic lights, while most of the incidents involving the robotised machines have happened in urban areas, rather than out on the open roads.
Four experimental self-driving cars - three Lexus RX 450h SUVs and an Audi owned by Delphi Automotive, all using the autonomous technology - have been involved in crashes in California since September, but of course none of these were the fault of Google's fledgling tech either.
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Urmson added: "If you spend enough time on the road, accidents will happen whether you're in a car or a self-driving car. We'll continue to drive thousands of miles so we can all better understand the all-too common incidents that cause many of us to dislike day-to-day driving - and we'll continue to work hard on developing a self-driving car that can shoulder this burden for us."
"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."