Ho-Hum on Google Fender Bender

Driverless Transportation

Google’s latest monthly update on its driverless car was released recently, revealing one of its Koala cars had another accident. Once again, it was not the driverless car’s fault, and once again it was a minor fender bender. The other guy was going 4 MPH when it hit the back of the Koala going 1.

Was it just a month ago that the media worldwide went nuts over a Google car going too slow?

The monthly reports provide updates on total usage if you’re keeping track:

1.32 million miles traveled in autonomous mode;

955,771 miles in manual mode;

10,000 – 15,000 autonomous miles now traveled in a typical week;

17 accidents in six years and more than 2.2 million miles traveled.

Google today has 23 Lexus SUVs self-driving on public streets in Mountain View, Calif, and Austin, Texas. Thirty of its prototypes are self-driving on public streets, 23 in in California, seven in Texas.

The November report offered an interesting description of how the car treats a right turn on red event, noting that it must be programmed differently for the two states where the Koala is operating because the laws are different.

Image Credit: The graphic for this story is from a Google event/competition/idea called Paint the Town that asks folks in California and Texas to submit images of the Koala that symbolizes their state. Hard to choose the best but the artist for this is Cathy Carr Haynes from Texas so she gets the nod this month.