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According to an article by the AP - via an ad-free site several of the self driving cars licensed to drive in California have been involved in accidents.
Most are slow speed accidents, apparently with no injuries.
Four of the nearly 50 self-driving cars now rolling around California have gotten into accidents since September, when the state began issuing permits for companies to test them on public roads. Two accidents happened while the cars were in control; in the other two, the person who still must be behind the wheel was driving, a person familiar with the accident reports told The Associated Press.
Three involved Lexus SUVs that Google Inc. outfitted with sensors and computing power in its aggressive effort to develop "autonomous driving," a goal the tech giant shares with traditional automakers. The parts supplier Delphi Automotive had the other accident with one of its two test vehicles. Google and Delphi said their cars were not at fault in any accidents, which the companies said were minor.
Neither the companies involved, nor the State of California will release details of these accidents, which rankles some critics.
Four accidents involving these 50 cars in 8 months may seem a little high. Google's 23 cars have driven 140,000 miles in that time and racked up 3 accidents all by them selves. That is an order of magnitude higher than the National Transportation Safety Board's figures of 0.3 per 100,000 for non injury accidents. However the NTSB doesn't collect all fender bender accidents.
The article says that none of the other states that permit self driving cars have any record of accidents.
(Score: 4, Informative) by ikanreed on Monday May 11 2015, @07:48PM
Oh come on. Read the whole summary. 3 per 140,000 for these cars versus 0.3 per 100,000 typical. That equation don't balance. Even factoring in that 55% of accidents aren't reported, it's still triple the average rate.
However their cars have been disproportionately involved in city driving, which has a much higher risk ratio(And that's undocumented by the NTSB's figures). The net result of that critical piece of ignorance is that it's virtually impossible to derive meaningful conclusions.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Mr Big in the Pants on Monday May 11 2015, @07:59PM
The fact they do not is incompetent.
In my country statistics NZ count those figures including a lot of other factors.
I found that out when I checked out the difference on motorcycle accidents and the difference between fatal city and urban crashes.
And all of this ignores that no one was hurt and thus these crashes are the sort that don't necessarily end up in their stats. Not to mention the cars are in beta and thus one would expect more crashes now than in the future. Not to mention who was at fault in the crashes. etc etc
This is a load of bullshit all round to be honest.
And even if at this stage they are higher - who cares? If they end up being much much lower and will change our society for the better long term then everybody just needs to STFU right now!
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 11 2015, @09:13PM
There's another factor to consider besides how safe these cars are: Proprietary software and surveillance. Clearly computers will be more integral to these cars than for other cars, so that provides more opportunity for companies and the government to violate people's privacy. They must have free software, or they should be rejected.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @01:09AM
If they end up being much much lower and will change our society for the better long term then everybody just needs to STFU right now!
Reasoning that could be used to shut down any discussion isn't reasoning at all.
(Score: 2) by Mr Big in the Pants on Tuesday May 12 2015, @04:59AM
Reduce any argument beyond reasonable and you can refute it.
What is your irrelevant point?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by pe1rxq on Monday May 11 2015, @10:51PM
I think it is way to early to compare numbers like this. Accidents are counted in integer increments (you can't have one third of an accident), and 3 is not really a large enough number to do proper statistics with.
By the time the google cars go from over a million miles this number will become interesting. Untill then we might just be looking at statistical noise.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday May 12 2015, @01:19PM
Also true, but I didn't want to seem defensive pulling the "You just can't know man" card.