If a self-driving car hits another car, who takes the blame? Police in Mountain View, Calif. might have asked that question last week when one of Google'sautomated vehicles got into a fender bender.
Japolnik received photos from a source that witnessed the crash, which took place near Google's headquarters in Mountain View. Both cars involved in the accident were Prisues, but Google's self-driving car is identifiable by the equipment on its roof. Google hasn't released an accident report, but a source later told NBC Bay Area that there were actually five cars involved. Google's Prius struck another Prius, which then hit a Honda Accord which hit another Accord, which rounded out the pile-up by hitting a third Prius.
Ironically enough, the self-driving car wasn't actually driving itself when the accident happened.
"Safety is our top priority," a Google spokesperson told the Business Insider. "One of our goals is to prevent fender-benders like this one, which occurred while a person was manually driving the car."
Google gave more details to NBC. "I would also like to point out that the cars have traveled 160,000 miles autonomously without incident," Google said. "[The accident] was earlier this week in Mountain View."
The company first announced that it was developing self-driving cars last October. At the time it said it had already clocked more than 140,000 miles around the Bay Area in these cars.
In June, Nevada passed a law requiring the state's Department of Motor Vehicles to create regulations for the ownership and operation of self-driving cars. But Japolnik points out that there are no such laws in California. Officials say testing the vehicles is okay, as long as there is a human in the front seat to take over if something goes haywire.
