Google says its cluster of twenty autonomous cars are concerned in eleven accidents since striking the roads in 2009. All the accidents, that were minor and failed to cause injury, were caused by humans driving alternative cars.
Google says none of the accidents were caused by its self-driving cars.
Google’s self-driving cars have gone nearly one million miles autonomously in six years. Add in manual driving miles and Google’s self-driving cars have traveled concerning one.7 million miles. So, however will that accident rate compare to United States of America humans?
According to the National road Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the national rate for according “property-damage-only crashes” is concerning 0.3 for each one hundred,000 miles. Google’s eleven accidents over 1.7 million miles comes intent on 0.6 per 100,000 miles. However, consistent with Google, up to 5 million minor accidents annually aren’t according.
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“Even once our package ANd sensors will notice a sticky state of affairs and take action earlier and quicker than an alert human driver, typically we have a tendency to won’t be ready to overcome the realities of speed and distance; typically we’ll get hit simply looking forward to a light-weight to alter,” Chris Urmson, director of Google’s driverless cars program, writes. “And that’s vital context for communities with self-driving cars on their streets; though we have a tendency to want we have a tendency to may avoid all accidents, some are inescapable.”
Here’s a breakdown of the accidents:
- seven accidents concerned Google cars being rear-ended
- 2 were side-swipes
- one accident concerned a automotive rolling through a stop sign
- eight of the accidents occurred on town streets
Raj rulekumar, a pioneer of autonomous driving technology with Carnegie philanthropist University, tells The Guardian, however, that the priority for self-driving cars to this point has been to avoid major accidents, not fender benders.
Google free these details when The Associated Press according that Google had notified Golden State of 3 collisions involving its self-driving cars since Sept.
The NHTSA says ninety four of accidents square measure caused by human errors, and most accidents occur at intersections. Urmson writes that Google has known “patterns of driver behavior (lane-drifting, red-light running) that square measure leading indicators of serious collisions.”
“A self-driving automotive has folks beat on this dimension of road safety,” Urmson writes. “With 360 degree visibility and 100% attention go in all directions in the least times; our newest sensors will keep track of alternative vehicles, cyclists, and pedestrians intent on a distance of nearly 2 soccer fields.”
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