Google self-driving car gets rear-ended in 13th accident since 2009

Google has sustained its 13th car accident since it began testing self-driving cars on roads in 2009.

"We just got rear-ended again yesterday while stopped at a stoplight in Mountain View,” Jacquelyn Miller, a Google spokeswoman, wrote in a statement sent to Ars and other media. "That's two incidents just in the last week where a driver rear-ended us while we were completely stopped at a light! So that brings the tally to 13 minor fender-benders in more than 1.8 million miles of autonomous and manual driving—and still, not once was the self-driving car the cause of the accident.”

In light of this new accident disclosure, the company hascreated a new website devoted to reporting on the self-driving car project.

That website has Google’s first monthly report, dated May 2015, and includes data and descriptions of each accident.

The report includes descriptions like this:

A Google Lexus model AV [autonomous vehicle] was involved in an accident in Mountain View while travelling northbound on Castro St and making a right turn onto El Camino eastbound. The car was operating in autonomous mode at the time of the accident. The Google AV was travelling northbound in the rightmost lane of Castro St and came to a complete stop for a red light at the intersection of Castro St and El Camino Real. The Google AV then proceeded to make a right turn on red by creeping forward to obtain a better field of view of cross traffic on El Camino Real approaching from the left. While creeping forward, the Google AV detected a vehicle approaching eastbound on El Camino Real and came to a stop in order to yield to the approaching vehicle. The Google AV was just starting to move (<1 MPH) when the vehicle following immediately behind it, which was also attempting to make a right turn onto El Camino Real, failed to brake sufficiently and struck the Google AV’s bumper at approximately 5 MPH.

The occupants of both vehicles involved were uninjured in the collision described above. The Google AV sustained minimal body damage, and the other vehicle sustained no visible body damage.