14 Things You Should Know About Driverless Cars

13. The Self-Driving Google Car Has Been in Two Accidents

Google has been testing their driverless automobile since 2008. In this timeframe, the Google Car has been involved in only two accidents. One accident occurred in 2011 when the auto was actually being driven by a human. The first accident involved the driver rear-ending another Toyota Prius that was being computer controlled in Mountain View, California. The second accident involving Google vehicles involved human drivers making the choice to drive around the self-driving vehicle. Although a much better accident record than human drivers have seen in the same timeframe, Google will not release information to the public regarding the number of times that the legacy versions of the Google Car were shifted from autonomous to manual mode due to privacy concerns with competing companies. The current version of the Google Car does not offer a manual driving option to the vehicle occupants.