Google's self-driving car collides with public bus in California

Google's self-driving vehicle caused an accident for the first time after its six years of test driving. Previously, it had some minor collisions, which were all due to the opponent driver's fault. It is the first time that Google has admitted its mistake.

According to the California Department of Motor Vehicles and foreign media on Monday, Google's self-driving car caused a minor collision with a bus at a crossroad in Mountain View, California on February 14. Google's outfitted Lexus RX450h sport utility vehicles ran at a speed of around 3 kilometers per hour on the left lane to avoid a sandbag on the road before driving against the bus, while there were no casualties.

"We clearly bear some responsibility, because if our car hadn’t moved, there wouldn’t have been a collision," Google said in a statement.

Google recently said that in six years of its self-driving project, it has been involved in 17 minor accidents during more than 2 million miles of autonomous and manual driving combined. "Not once was the self-driving car the cause of the accident," Google had said.

Since Google has been working on its self-driving car project, there have been continuous debates on their safety. According to a report on self-driving disengagements released by the California Department of Motor Vehicles early this year, 49 Google self-driving cars racked up over 680,000 autonomous miles during the recent 14-month period, where in 69 disengagements the human driver took control of the car on their own initiative. With the most advanced technology and driving data, Google is still unskilled in terms of its computer program coping with unforeseen situations.

"Although we cannot see negatively the future of self-driving cars because of this accident, it is clear that these cars have many issues to be tackled in terms of technology," said Lee Hang-koo, a researcher at the Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade.

정세진기자 mint4a@donga.com