Here's Footage Of A Self-Driving Google Car Crashing Into A Bus

So far Google has blamed every self-driving car crash on human error, but this CCTV footage from a bus shows the first crash in which Google accepts its car was at fault
Remote video URL

This isn’t the first time a Google self-driving car has been involved in a crash, but significantly it is the first time it has admitted fault. So far, it’s always been caused by a human driver crashing into the Google car, but as you can see here, this one comes down to the Google car misinterpreting the road.

You can read Google’s in-depth review of the incident on The Verge, but the general gist of it is that the Google car wanted to turn right, but found its path blocked by sandbags. It indicated left to drive around them, and thought the bus was slowing to let it out. It wasn’t, and the Google car found itself in the way. Fortunately nobody was hurt, but Google’s Lexus did suffer some minor damage to its front bumper.

This is proof that even a highly intelligent robot can’t predict other humans’ behaviour every single time, so teaching its cars to better interpret other road users will be key to Google creating autonomous cars that can co-exist with human drivers.

Sources: Jalopnik and The Verge

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Comments

Anonymous

I’d say we’re still pretty far from driverless cars everywhere.

03/09/2016 - 17:47 |
38 | 1
Dinosbacsi

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

And I thank god for that.

03/09/2016 - 17:54 |
44 | 2
Turboghini

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

I don’t think safety is much of the part of driverless cars, it will just be more of a convenience. It will still take them a long time to learn human behavior and then program the car react to it. As people aren’t perfect there will always be flaws.

03/09/2016 - 17:58 |
0 | 0
V-Tech and EcoBoost kicked in yo

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

Depends on what you define as pretty far. Google started this technology only recently, and it is rapidly learning.

03/09/2016 - 18:25 |
1 | 1
Anonymous

should’ve checked the blind spot, typical

03/09/2016 - 17:48 |
28 | 0
Anonymous

Haha. Google said this was the future. Looks like it even makes human errors. Let us drive ourselves.

03/09/2016 - 17:48 |
10 | 4
Unknown

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

The reason this collision happened was because the car assumed the bus was slowing down and that it was able to merge into traffic. Google has since adjusted the parameters with buses and other large vehicles so the car will not be in the same situation again. You also have to realize this is still very early in the development phase. So nothing is going to be perfect

03/09/2016 - 17:54 |
6 | 0
V-Tech and EcoBoost kicked in yo

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

This is the future. Considering how new this technology is, it is highly impressive how it has only had one true accident.

03/09/2016 - 18:27 |
1 | 1
Carguy1999 Reviews

I guess you could say they were…BUSted;)

03/09/2016 - 17:48 |
88 | 1
H5SKB4RU (Returned to CT)

among the search terms in google one of the things they will never admit is “failure’

03/09/2016 - 17:53 |
1 | 1

What do you mean?

03/09/2016 - 17:56 |
0 | 0
DannyWRX

Are you kidding me ? Yeah google car made the mistake and moved over but the bigger jerk is the bus driver not letting him in.
Secondly, you’re not allowed to pass a car in that spot!!! It’s not like he was in a separate lane!
I side with google here. The bus and that GMC made an illegal pass.

03/09/2016 - 17:53 |
1 | 5

I hope you never get to drive.

03/09/2016 - 19:44 |
3 | 1

I agree with you, despite the fact everyone’s downvoting you (and will probably downvote me too).

Bus drivers have a holier-than-thou attitude and pretty much will never yield to other drivers. The LAW does NOT state that “Bus drivers are exempt from yield laws”. Nor does it say anywhere that bus drivers shouldn’t drive defensively or courteously. But they don’t. Most drivers, seeing another car trapped in a blocked lane, would slow down to allow the other car to merge. Not all, but most. That’s not just city buses but school buses as well. I work at a school and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been almost hit in the mornings by school buses changing lanes, speeding through the parking lots at breakneck speeds, and even going the WRONG direction on the driveway, all of which somehow is acceptable to the administration.

The Google car was wrong in the sense that it did not predict the bus driver would do what bus drivers do, which is PRETEND there are no other vehicles on the road.

03/10/2016 - 03:03 |
1 | 1
Turboghini

Humans are the cause of all mistakes. By us making cars that would drive automatically still can’t fix our safety problem, it’s just more of a convenience. People are human, they will make mistakes.

03/09/2016 - 17:56 |
1 | 1
H5SKB4RU (Returned to CT)

In reply to by Turboghini

robots make mistakes, would you let a robot to decide if your car runs over a kid or a deer? i would ran over the deer in case i couldn’t avoid them both. the robot i still don’t know

03/09/2016 - 18:05 |
0 | 0
LovelyRubyRosie

Um, is this in like 5 fps, defaq?

03/09/2016 - 17:58 |
14 | 1

What, you think google would let something like this be on the internet in HD at 60FPS? :P

03/09/2016 - 21:01 |
2 | 2

It’s in low quality to keep costs down. Let’s say you have to supply 100k buses with 3 cameras each. At such great quantities you want cheap cameras, so the costs reasonable.

03/10/2016 - 22:30 |
2 | 0
Hoon the Galaxy

Could the steering wheel on that bus be any higher?

03/09/2016 - 18:15 |
3 | 0

just read that in Chandler Bing’s voice..

03/11/2016 - 11:30 |
1 | 0
Anonymous

Google car ‘s output during the crash - 01100110 01110101 01100011 01101011

03/09/2016 - 18:20 |
19 | 0
P5 Ford

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

011010010010000001110011011001010110010100100000011101110110100001100001011101000010000001111001011011110111010100100000011001000110100101100100001000000111010001101000011001010111001001100101

03/09/2016 - 18:42 |
7 | 0