Recently one of Google's self-driving cars got into its first accident involving a public bus. According to the reports the car was rolling at 2mph (3kph) and the bus at 15mph. Luckily the news indicate that nobody got hurt.
People have mixed opinions about autonomous driving. Majority of them are saying that maybe humanity is just not ready yet for a car that drives itself. However, teams at Google think otherwise.
The company have since given out a statement explaining what exactly went down.
"[The car] then detected sandbags near a storm drain blocking its path, so it needed to come to a stop. After waiting for some other vehicles to pass, our vehicle, still in autonomous mode, began angling back toward the center of the lane at around 2mph - and made contact with the side of a passing bus traveling at 15mph" read their statement.
Witnesses say that the collision might've been avoided if Google's designated test drive driver handled the wheels. According to Google's driver he thought that the bus driver would yield and wait for the self-driving car to find its way but the driver proceeded anyway.
With no explanation of who is at fault, the pointing of fingers has begun. Hilary Rowen, a partner at the insurance regulation practice Sedgwick LLP and an expert in the issue of self-driving cars and legal responsibility has since explained that based on her expertise, it is most likely that the software would be blamed for accidents involving autonomous cars. She explained that people accept that there is a higher rate for human error when it comes to driving. As such most would be quicker in assuming self-driving cars are at fault since these cars supposedly make more accurate driving calculations.
