Google’s self-driving car project was hit with its first injury accident when one of its autonomous SUVs was rear-ended earlier this month in Mountain View, the company revealed Thursday.
Google’s autonomous vehicle had paused at a Mountain View intersection during the evening rush hour on when it was rear-ended by another vehicle on July 1, the company said in blog post on Medium’s Backchannel.
“One of our Lexus vehicles was driving autonomously towards an intersection in Mountain View,” wrote Chris Urmson, head of Google’s self-driving car project. “The light was green, but traffic was backed up on the far side, so three cars, including ours, braked and came to a stop so as not to get stuck in the middle of the intersection. After we’d stopped, a car slammed into the back of us at 17 mph” —” and it hadn’t braked at all.”
Above: This 2014 photo provided by Google shows a self-driving Lexus SUV navigating along a street in Mountain View. (AP Photo/Google)
