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Comment by teraflop | Hacker News Reader

Maybe you wouldn't consider this "credible", but Google publishes a monthly report listing every collision their autonomous cars have been involved in. [1]

I was curious, so I went through the whole list. By my count, in the history of the program they've been involved in 19 accidents during autonomous operation, and the car was only at fault in one of those. [2] The majority of the other crashes were caused by other drivers rear-ending the car while it was stopped.

[1]: https://www.google.com/selfdrivingcar/reports/

[2]: http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/9/11186072/google-self-drivin...

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"While it was stopped" is the key.

It's hard to argue that a car stopped at red light violates anyone's expectation of how a human would drive.

That's a misleading phrase. A number of the accidents have occurred because the Google car abruptly came to a stop in a situation where a human driver would not have stopped. Slamming on the brakes is dangerous.

Here is one example. It is hard to be sure exactly what happened, because Google obviously phrases its accident reports to put its cars in as favorable light as possible.

"April 28, 2016: A Google self-driving prototype vehicle travelling westbound in autonomous mode on Nita Avenue in Palo Alto was involved in an accident. The prototype vehicle came to a stop at the intersection of San Antonio Road, then, prior to making a right turn on San Antonio Road, began to gradually advance forward in order to get a better view of traffic approaching from the left on San Antonio Road. When the prototype vehicle stopped in order to yield to traffic approaching from the left on San Antonio Road, a vehicle approaching at approximately 9 mph from behind the prototype collided with the rear bumper of the prototype vehicle."

http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en/...

Obviously the textual description is limited (e.g. a video would settle this question), but that description alone is hardly unnatural. The behavior of the Google car is behavior I make all the time, and one I see drivers making all the time: inching forwards in the right-hand lane to look at the traffic on the left, then stopping because you've decided not to go for it.

The fact is: slow speed rear ends are really common. I've had them happen to me several times during one year where I commuted every day. I've done it myself on another car.

I would not be surprised if over the course of the next few years Google cars get rear-ended at light to moderate speeds hundreds of times.

That says nothing about driver expectations, and is a poor interpretation of statistics.

About 23-30% of human accidents are rear end collisions. It is entirely possible that the car drives so well that other types of collisions are minimized.

That leaves rear-end collisions - the type the car can't control - misleadingly seeming to be abnormally high.

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