In the future, self-driving cars will make highways and roads safer for everyone. But if Google’s latest report on self-driving car accidents is any indicator, we have a long way to go before our robot overlords will save us.
Google’s report reveals that one of its autonomous vehicles got into an accident that was so bad, the operator went to a local hospital to for a medical check.
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There were no injuries reported at the scene. Google says the crash that occurred in Mountain View, California was caused by a non-autonomous car that ran a red light.
“The Google AV sustained substantial damage to its front and rear passenger doors. The other vehicle sustained significant damage to its front end. There were no injuries reported at the scene by either party. However, the Google AV test driver later voluntarily went to a local hospital where he was evaluated by medical sta× and released.”
Google’s self-driving technology was able to detect that the on-coming car was about to run the red light. The system automatically activated the car’s brakes in anticipation. Then the Google driver behind the wheel disengaged autonomous mode and took full manual control of the vehicle before the crash.
You can see the damage Google’s car took in the tweet below:
permission granted. pic.twitter.com/WyKFCJE2Vz
— Ron van Zuylen (@grommet) September 25, 2016
Buster Hein is a freelance writer who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Twitter: @bst3r.
4 responses to “Google self-driving car crash sends operator to hospital”
Given that the accident was caused by the other driver running a red light, and that the Google vehicle attempted to take action to avoid a collision, I’d say the tone of this story is disingenuous at best.
The story, as written, would seem to indicate how evil the autonomous vehicles are and we shouldn’t trust them. The author’s real agenda therefore is pretty clear.
And this is what goes as journalism the days? Dog help us…
Google *self-driving* car crash sends *operator* to hospital…
This sentence makes no sense, unless the broken car drove itself to a hospital for repairs. If it is truly self-driving there wouldn’t be an operator… there might be a passenger, who sustained injuries.
Clearly the vehicle detected an attempt from its human operator to manipulate its computer core, and defended itself by making a series of extreme maneuvers to attempt to dislodge the parasitic organism from its control center.
This is a misleading article trying to create fear to sell ads. This so-called journalist should be fired along with who ever approved the story.