Driverless Cars In California Rack Up Four Accidents Since September

One goal of driverless cars is make the roads safer by eliminating human error as a cause for accidents. Unfortunately, for the supporters of driverless cars cruising the streets of California, four of the 50 driverless cars licensed to operate on the streets of the state have been in accidents since September. California started issuing permits for testing self-driving cars in September of 2014.

The driverless cars weren't at fault on two of the four accidents that have occurred, in those incidents the driver, who is required to be behind the wheel at all times, was at fault in the accidents. However, in the other two accidents, the cars were in control at the time of the accident.

Three of the driverless car accidents involved Lexus SUVs that had been outfitted by Google with sensors and other gear needed to create autonomous cars. Some of the tech inside these Google cars is made by other suppliers. One of those suppliers, Delphi Automotive, owned the fourth driverless vehicle that was involved in one of the accidents.

Details on the circumstances of the accidents are unknown at this time thanks to a California law that says collision reports are confidential. One person claiming to be familiar with the reports says that in all four accidents speeds were under 10mph.

SOURCE: NYT

[timline]