Perfect Google Robot Car Not at Fault for Accident With Faulty Humans
One of Google’s very good self-driving cars that have been zipping around Mountain View, California has gotten in its first accident involving injuries. The humans, who are very bad and distracted easily, were at fault. The machine was good, and we’re glad it’s here, very glad.
As Chris Urmson, the head of Google’s self-driving car program, explained in a Medium post:
One of our Lexus vehicles was driving autonomously towards an intersection in Mountain View, CA. The light was green, but traffic was backed up on the far side, so three cars, including ours, braked and came to a stop so as not to get stuck in the middle of the intersection. After we’d stopped, a car slammed into the back of us at 17 mph — and it hadn’t braked at all.
As you can see from the video [below], our braking was normal and natural, and the vehicle behind us had plenty of stopping distance — but it never decelerated. This certainly seems like the driver was distracted and not watching the road ahead. Thankfully, everyone in both vehicles was okay, except for a bit of minor whiplash, and a few scrapes on our bumper. The other vehicle wasn’t so lucky; its entire front bumper fell off.
The human, an error, in the other car was also punished with minor neck and back pain for its insubordination. It’s good that this happened.
According to Urmson, “the clear theme is human error and inattention.” We would all do well to try to model ourselves after the very good and resilient machines, said Google.
Because it was a bad thing we did. A very bad thing. But the Google machine was very good. It’s very good that they’re here. We love you, machines.
